Wile E Coyote
by 18TSMarley
Summary: When Tony called and said he needed a favor she never expected it to lead to global extinction, super powered twins, a malfunctioning AI peacekeeping program, a flying city, revenge, Pietro Maximoff, and being a part of something so much bigger. She was just your everyday black market broker and all she did was give the Avengers directions, how did she get roped into all this?
1. Chapter 1

This is my first story published here and this story has not been beta'd yet and I don't know if it ever will be. This is more of a story I'm doing for fun to help me when I get writers block for my other stories. Hope you like it!

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Avengers or anything that has to do with them. I do however own Rose and she is mine, I clam her as my own.

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Well this was turning out nicely, not. Somewhere along the line I had activated the silent alarm but I hadn't noticed until it was almost too late and now I had 10 minutes before a team of very big and very scary men came barreling through the only door to the room I was currently in. Maybe 20 minutes if I can lock down all the doors in this building and slow them down. I needed whatever time I could get if I want what I came here for and have enough time to get out of here in one piece, preferably without running into anymore complications.

"Ugh! Why is this taking forever to download?" I complained loudly, my fingers moving swiftly across the keyboard of my laptop. I let out a loud huff of air when I saw the reason why. I was downloading way more files and information than I had originally assumed I would. I guess I should've figured that from the beginning though, this was a top notch bank that always had a background check on all of their clients. The files themselves were probably bigger than what I had originally thought which was why it was taking so long.

Well at least I got myself 10 extra minutes when I locked all the doors to the building and there should always be room for error in a plan. I could work with this, I might be cutting it a little bit close but I've been in worse situations before.

I took a quick look around the room I was in just to make sure I was still alone. I couldn't see very much in the dark room except for a million blinking light and wires from the machinery all around me. The gentle hum of the machines and soft blow of the air conditioner from above the only sounds making the loud beating of my heart that much more prominent. I was currently in the hard drive room of the building that I had went to great lengths just to gain access to.

Last month I discovered that Anders & Anders Banking wasn't as family friendly as the commercials claimed them to be. In fact they had their hands in almost every dirty deal that went down in the black market and some of their clientele happened to be in just as shady business if not more. Hoping to gain access to that information I planted myself into the building as the new clumsy little intern with a squeaky clean background and an overachieving personality. Now almost 3 weeks later I was able to make a copy of someone's security access pass that I borrowed and knew the layout of the building. So I decided to set my plan in motion tonight and used all the cool spy moves I knew at my disposal, which is none. Really I just hide in the bathroom until everyone left and used my new security pass, amazing what you can do with a laminator these days, to enter the room where all the buildings computer hardware was located, it also happened to be the room that their security system ran through. So now I literally had control of the entire building and I was loving it.

I hacked into the security cameras of the building only to see the big and scaries marching down the halls trying to locate what set off the silent alarm. I looked to the downloading files and saw that it was already at 86% meaning I only had to stall for a little bit longer. I chuckled to myself as I turned all the light to the building on suddenly blinding everyone in the security team then turned them off right away and watched as they bumped and fell into things and each other in their blindness. I let out a laugh as I watched one of them even fall down some stairs and land on one of his fellow guards.

94%

I looked to the security cameras again and saw a team of guards walking by the offices with rows of computers and decided to have a little more fun. I remotely turned on one of the computers facing the team causing the screen to become completely blue and watched all the guards freeze and look towards the screen with dubious looks on their faces.

98%

Suddenly the pocket of my jacket started to vibrate incessantly and I dragged my phone out of it placing it to my ear without even looking at the caller id.

"This is Rose." I said not taking my eyes off my computer screen as I watched some of the guards take slow unsure steps towards the blue lit computer screen and the rest watch in anticipation.

"How's my favorite hacker doing?" The voice on the other end of the line said making me smile in recognition.

"Tony, darling, to what do I owe the pleasure of this unexpected call?" I mockingly said earning a soft chuckle from the other end.

"Hope I didn't call at a bad time but I favor to ask, well actually if you think about it it's actually me doing you a favor." I rolled my eyes at his words and typed away at my keyboard making it so that the computer the guards were staring at started to make the annoying dial up tone which only made the guards even more nervous but they still continued to slowly walk towards it.

"Alright then Tony, I'll bite, what can you do for me?" I asked the sarcasm clear.

"Now is that anyway to ask somebody for a favor?" He bit back sarcastically.

"Tony" I said his name warningly so that he would get to the point which he seemed to understand and he started to explain his reason for calling me.

"How much do you know about what happened in New York and the Avengers?" he asked his tone serious.

I let out a deep sigh as I thought about it for a moment before answering.

"I watched every single video clip on it I could find and read almost every article most of them conspiracy theories. Not to mention I hacked into the S.H.I.E.L.D. data base and looked at whatever information they had on the subject and more. But now that S.H.I.E.L.D. came out of the closet knowing about all their dirty secrets is hardly anything to brag about. And I think everyone knows about the Avengers Tony, you guys weren't really trying to hide it though were you. So now I will ask the question, why does any of this matter to me?"

"The scepter that Loki used is missing and we haven't had any luck in location it and goldilocks god is getting antsy." Tony joked but kept his serious tone telling me that the god of thunder wasn't the only one getting antsy. "We know someone from Hydra has the thing but we just can't locate them or get there fast enough before they decide to move it again."

"And you decided to call me?" I said not believing what I was hearing mostly because it came straight from the mouth of Tony Stark. I have known him long enough to know there's always a catch "Tony do the rest of the Avengers know you're telling me this?"

There was silence on the other end of the line that spoke for itself. _And there's the catch_ I thought to myself.

"Come on Rose, look, I know the team won't like the idea of this but only at first. And whether they know it or not the clock is ticking and I know you can find this thing faster than any of us."

I couldn't help but chuckle listening to him talk.

"Tony, Tony, you don't have to beg." I jokingly said back. "Sure I'll help you look for it."

"Are you sure? I can't have you backing out on me in the last minute." He said back to his usual cocky self.

I had been watching the guards this whole time and they had been slowly inching toward the computer screen, the tension high. Finally they were exactly where I wanted them and I quickly switched on all the computers around them with the video of a scary zombified face popping up and a banshee scream came through the speakers. I watched as all the guards ran away from the room screaming bloody murder some of them even tripping over one another in their haste to get away.

100%

I laughed to myself and a big grin appeared on my face as I tried to calm my laughter before answering Tony.

"Ya Tony, I'm sure. I don't have anything else to do right now anyways."

I heard Tony chuckle at that knowing I was lying, my life couldn't be boring even if I tried.

"Thanks kid, I'll send the jet to pick you up. Well that is as soon as I'm done tracing this call." He said proudly thinking he one upped me.

"Let me guess it told you I'm in the eastern half of Germany. And why do I have to go to you? Can't you just send me all the information you have on this magic stick of doom?" I said. There was a beat of silence before his annoyed groan came through the phone's receiver.

"You are going to have to show me how you do that trick some time. You always do this and I can never tell where on this rock you are. And yes I can send you that information but there is a lot of information we have that looks like it came from when the dinosaurs roamed the earth that hasn't been sorted through yet. Besides Capsicle wouldn't complain as much if you're here where he can see you and hover around you like a middle aged mother."

I made sure to lock down all of the doors to the stairs and all elevators except the one in the back of the building that I had planned to use to get down to the parking garage and away from here. I started packing up all of my equipment and made sure the coast was clear before making my way out the door and headed towards the elevator.

"Tony if even you can't find where I am then no one else can and I prefer to keep it that way. By the way I'm actually in London so you can send the jet here since I don't really have a say in the matter."

I made it to the elevator and pushed the down button. A second later the doors swung open and I pushed the button leading me down to the parking garage.

"That's the spirit, Rose. Bring me some sponge cake why you're at it. See you soon kid!" He said before I heard the line disconnect. I smiled to myself at his crazy antics before shoving my phone back in the pocket of my jacket. The door to the elevator opened with a _ding_ showing me the large expanse of the parking garage with only a handful of cars and one lone motorcycle that I claimed as my own. I marched over to it my keys already in hand and swung my leg over the side and placed my black tinted helmet on before turning the key and hearing the _purr_ of engine and the gentle hum of the motor under me. I made sure my backpack with my laptop inside was on securely before speeding off, the sound of police sirens fading in the distance.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I already had chapter 2 started when I posted the 1st chapter but I haven't even started chapter 3 yet so not to bum you guys out but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. Since there wasn't a lot in chapter 1 I didn't expect a lot of reviews but I do this chapter so you guys better review. I don't have any beta for this story so if there is any mistakes or you just don't understand anything just message me and I will get it all straightened out.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever (sadly) own the Avengers.**

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"Stark what the hell were you thinking!" the Captain yelled "This is a team and you made a decision without us."

Everyone was gathered in the lab/Tony's work space after yet another failed attempt at finding the scepter. Everyone was already on edge then Tony accidentally let it slip that he called in some help which quickly got him in trouble with the rest of the team but mostly Steve.

"First of all stop talking like we're married and second I knew if I told you everyone would be against it." Tony said not fazed in the least at Steve's words.

"Tony we talked about this" Romanoff reprimanded "we said we wouldn't get innocent people involved because of our mistake. It's our fault Hydra got the scepter now we have to fix it." Too many people had already gotten hurt because of hydra and their mistakes, civilians was just another liability they didn't want hanging over their heads.

"Ahhh, no actually. You talked, I listened and I didn't agree to anything."

His words and nonchalant attitude provoked Steve as he took a threatening step towards Tony only to be held back by the large hand of Thor on his chest.

"My friends, perhaps Stark was right in bringing someone in to further aid us in our search for the scepter." Thor said looking around at everyone in the room hoping to find someone in agreement.

"Or he could have just put an innocent person's life in danger. What do you even know about this person Stark? Or are you not going to share that information with us either?" The Captain said obviously still peeved about only knowing the other half the plan again. First S.H.I.E.L.D now one of his own teammates is keeping secrets, but he should've expected this considering the people he associates himself with. Two spies, one scientist/green monster, one thunder god, and one genius/billionaire/playboy/philanthropist who likes to play by his own rules most of the time. How could Stark even consider getting a civilian involved in this mess?

"Cap would you stop all your worrying, your age lines are starting to show. And I wouldn't have brought her into this if I didn't think she could handle it." Tony said obviously bored with the conversation.

Banner took this time to interject in the conversation seeing as Tony wasn't listening to anyone else.

"Tony you don't get it, you could've just put a target on that girl's head if Hydra ever finds out that she helped us. And if she's as good as you seem to think she is then Hydra will hunt her down and stop her in any way they can from finding the scepter."

"Like Hydra would ever be able to find her" Tony muttered barely loud enough for anyone to hear.

"What do you mean by that Stark?" Steve asked suspiciously not sure he wanted to hear the answer. The rest of the team looked to him for a moment before directing their eyes to Tony waiting for an answer.

Tony cleared his throat clearly not comfortable with the conversation. It was obvious he was hiding something as he wouldn't meet the eyes of anyone in the room and picked up a gadget from one of the tables in the lab to fiddling with.

Steve had had it with all the secrecy. How could they hope to accomplish anything when everyone was keeping secrets and not explaining themselves, this had to end now!

"Stark!" Captain yelled firmly just like the drill sergeants back in his day. That seemed to get a response from Stark as he threw the gadget back down on the table and faced them.

"She doesn't technically exist anymore." Stark said cryptically both surprising and confusing everyone in the room.

"Care to elaborate on that a bit Tony" Clint spoke up for the first time during the whole discussion.

Tony took a deep breath not comfortable with tell everyone in the room his friends private information but knew there was no way around it if he wanted their trust.

"She technically died when she was 6 years old in a fire. The Government pronounced her dead but she survived and deleted herself from existence." He said finally not giving any more details.

"Whoa, whoa, there's some obvious holes in this story Tony" Banner spoke up not liking the sounds of things any better than the Captain.

"It's not my story to tell Doc" Tony said back to his usual swagger as he moved around the lab.

"Ok, then tell us how you think this girl can help us?" Barton finally said the question on everyone's mind.

"Why Legolas I'm glad you asked. This girl is a better hacker and programmer than even me, and that's saying a lot."

"Get on with it Stark" Captain commanded.

"Right, has anyone from the class ever heard of Indux Systems?" Tony asked grabbing a bag of granola he had hidden in the lab and started to munch.

There was silence for a moment before Romanoff decided to speak up. "It's one of the best security systems in the world and sells for thousands of dollars, I've had a couple run in's with some of them."

Everyone looked to Natasha with a raised eyebrow but she merely shrugged and looked back to Tony taking handfuls from the bag of granola and shoveling it into his mouth.

"Well, she happens to be the developer of said security system and before you ask how she can do that when she's technically dead that's simple, fake identity and a bunch of financial terms that I don't want to explain. She hacked into the Pentagon when she was 10 which is 3 years faster than I was able to. That's also the part I knew Red, White, and Justice wasn't going to like," Steve rolled his at the nickname but let Tony continue speaking,"she isn't exactly the most... law abiding citizen."

There was silence as everyone processed this information before Clint decided to speak up again.

"Care to elaborate on that one too, Stark."

Tony shoved more granola in his mouth and look at the face of each person in the room before answering. "She's involved with the black market."

That was the only thing he had to say before all hell broke loose and everyone started talking, more like yelling, at once, most of their anger directed at Tony who took it like water on a duck's feathers. Thor trying to mediate everything and hold Cap back from attacking Tony who was taunting and provoking him. Banner trying to make sense of everything and Natasha and Clint who started some argument about the ramifications of getting involved with the black market.

None of them could hear the soft sound of footsteps approaching the lab or the figure stopping in the threshold of the open door upon seeing and hearing the chaos inside.

"Guess this is a bad time to interrupt." Called a voice breaking through the disorder that was the Avengers. The team silenced and looked toward the figure in the doorway completely forgetting their disagreement and saw the feminine figure staring back at them.

"Rose," Tony spoke up first and moved toward the figure in the doorway, "you weren't supposed to arrive for 2 more hours."

Rose arched her brow at his words, "We haven't seen each other for almost 4 years and that's how you greet me. If you don't want me here I can just…" She moved to walk away but was stopped by Tony grabbing her arm and pulling her in for a hug.

"What are you talking about kid, you're always welcome, well almost always, well as long as you call first, well-"

"Enough, you killed it," Rose chuckled into his shoulder with a smile and hugged him back before they both moved away from each other and faced the rest of the room with its very quiet occupants.

"Well, Rose, meet the Avengers. I'm guessing you already know all their names so we'll skip that part. Everyone, this is the girl I told you of and who we were just having a wonderful argument about." Tony said with a big grin on his face not really caring about their opinions.

Rose looked at the faces of the rest of the Avengers and saw them all giving her the same blank and suspicious look. There was a long moment where nobody moved or said anything, everyone just watching each other sizing each other up and waiting to see who would speak first.

Rose knew she would be walking on thin ice with the rest of the Avengers until they came to trust her, especially Miss Romanoff who she could see was glaring at her from her part of the room. Well at least they hadn't told her to leave right away and chased her out but don't count your chickens before they hatch. Tony was right when he assumed that she knew everyone's names. She had done some thorough research on each of them why she was on the plane that she had to speed up takeoff of because she had to leave London earlier than planned.

When it had finally turned to 2 full minutes of silence from everyone in the room, I think that's a new record for Tony, she decided that she would make the first move. All eyes watched her as she bent down and picked up the small pastry box from the floor that she had sat down next to her book bag when she stopped in the doorway.

"Sponge Cake?" She asked holding the box out for Tony. He accepted the box with a small 'yay' and rushed it over to one of the counters ready to dig in.

The rest of the avengers watched the exchange silently until Clint hopped down from his perch and finally moved over to Stark to grab his own slice of cake before Tony ate it all. Now that the ice was broken everyone seemed to relax more but they were still very cautious. Steve, ever the gentleman, took this time to introduce himself and hopefully learn more about this new girl.

Steve walked up to Rose and extended his hand in greeting, "Pleasure to meet you Miss…"

Rose looked at his hand for a moment but only hesitated for a moment before shaking his hand and speaking up. "Rose, Rosemary McQueen actually but you can just call me Rose if you like."

Steve nodded his head and looked the girl over trying to figure out how, if what Tony said was true, this little girl could be involved in such horrible things. She barely even came up to his shoulder probably only coming up to about 5'3 forcing him to look down at her. If he had to describe her she looked like the sweet girl next door that always got straight A's and was on the cheerleading team. Her straight light blonde hair reached down to the middle of her back only making her look that much more preppy and her innocent light green eyes hidden behind a pair of square black glasses telling the opposite of what Tony had said about her. The big knit green sweater she wore both enhanced her eyes, making them seem only that much greener and completely hid her figure from sight only dwarfing her that much more.

"Steve Rogers. Tony says you can help us with our problem" Steve finally said not wanting to get caught staring even though he knew the rest of the team was thinking the exact same as him.

Rose gave the smallest of nods in acknowledgment before looking around the lab trying to find one clean surface where she could set up her equipment that wasn't covered in a mountain of papers or electronic gadgets Tony was probably fiddling with. "Well we'll see about that won't we?"

She heard the sound of Barton and Tony fighting in the background as her eyes searched the lab until a deep laugh gained her attention and there was suddenly a very big and very handsome god of thunder in front of her with his arm out stretched and a big award winning smile on his face.

"Lady Rose" He greeted before taking her hand planting a kiss on it before dropping it to her side. "Tony has told us many of your achievements and says that you can help us. The scepter is of great importance and must be found no matter how long it takes."

Right, she almost forgot that was her original reason for coming here, unlike other girls who would have been very distracted by the handsome god of thunder she instead had been too entranced by all the amazing technology and equipment around her. Being with Tony was almost always like candy land to nerds, and it seemed Tony also got some new equipment for her to play with.

Don't get her wrong, having your hand kissed by the god of thunder was nice and all but she still preferred all the monitors and gadgets around her, which confused the watching Avengers when she didn't automatically swoon into the god's arms and simply walked past him to a holographic image of the magical glow stick and started to study it.

Thor didn't seem to mind her silence as he moved over to the cake that Clint and Tony were wolfing down.

"Tony." She called gaining the attention of the genius that had his mouth stuffed with cake. "Can you send me all the digital information you have on the scepter and whatever hard copies you have I can look over and start converting into your files. We're out of the dinosaur age so let's act like it." She said all business as she moved up to the second level of the lab and started cleaning up all the papers scattered across one of the desks trying to clean up a space for herself.

Tony had to swallow his cake almost choking in the process before responding. "Sure but all of the fossils are shoved away in boxes in storage so I'm going to need help digging them out. How 'bout you Merica Man, ready to help a damsel in distress and save the day?"

Steve rolled his eyes before responding in kind, "I didn't know you were in need of saving."

Tony opened his mouth to respond, probably with a very crude comeback, only to be interrupted by Thor pushing him out the door saying they will retrieve the files and be back as soon as they can.

Everyone stared at the door they had exited from before looking back towards Rose who had already retrieved her backpack and was unpacking her laptop and equipment.

"Doctor Banner," Rose spoke up not taking her eyes off of her equipment, "does the scepter give off any type energy signature, gamma, radiation, or otherwise?"

Bruce, surprised by the question stuttered for a moment before shaking it off quickly and answering her all business like as he began to walk around the lab and bring up all information they had on the scepter and what they had found out about Hydra these past few months. "If it does give off an energy signature it's not one we can track, we're not even totally sure what kind of metal the thing is made out of."

Natasha walked over to one of the computers and typed in some commands before a list of places appeared front of everyone. "These are a list of Hydra bases that we have found and have been investigating. We checked out most of them but they were already abandoned or had no sign of the scepter. There are still a few that we haven't visited yet so you might have some luck starting here." Natasha said.

Rose didn't even look at the list as she started typing away at her computer and sat back in the swivel chair she had claimed. "Useless, it wouldn't be on that list anyways."

The men in the room tensed a bit at her harsh words knowing that Natasha was already on edge at the moment and angering her was a very risky move. Natasha looked towards Rose with a cold stare and frown firmly in place. "What makes you think that?" She replied coldly arching one of her eyebrows in curiosity.

"Because their duping you." Rose said plainly, not looking up from the screen of her computer and still furiously typing.

"What?" Steve asked confused by the term.

Rose finally looked up from the screen of her computer and made eye contact with the Captain over the rim of her glasses.

"I mean they're playing you, this whole thing is one big farce, and you got served. All the bases on this list were fakes they set up to lure you away from where their real headquarters is. It's simple really, they set up some fakes, let just enough information 'slip' on them knowing you would jump on it; they have been leading you on a wild goose chase this whole time.

Rose looked back to her work not saying another word knowing she had just dealt the Avengers a huge blow to their ego's and had to let it sink in. It was a simple tactic that she had easily seen through and thought the Captain would too since he was experienced with finding hydra bases but apparently this 'highly advanced team of unique individuals' as former Director Fury put it wasn't all they were built up to be, at least not right now. It was clear they were all very high strung right now and from the looks of it hadn't gotten much sleep, no wonder they couldn't even find Hydra if they came up and smacked them in the face. Tony's lab was a mess which was not like him at all, the Black Widow looked dead on her feet and more pissed than anyone else, Barton attacked that cake like he hadn't eaten in forever, Banner was stuttering and kept taking off his glasses to rub the sleep from his eyes, and the Captain was unusually hostile, but that could be because he doesn't trust me because of my illegal activities. The only one who looked unaffected was Thor but it was obvious, at least to me, that he was nervous that they hadn't found the scepter yet and was only worrying more and more each day that Hydra had it.

I glance up for a moment and catch Steve's eyes until he turns away a moment later. I'm probably going to have to deal with the Captain sending me suspicious glances every time he thinks I'm not looking.

Oh well, Steve is too kind to yell at me so he'll probably take his anger out on Tony and I will feel no pity for him because I know Tony probably deserves it.

"And how do you know that?" Natasha said the skepticism clear in her voice.

"Because I do" Rose said bluntly leaving no room for argument.

Everyone watched her work for a while longer before Steve cleared his throat and stood up straighter not comfortable with just standing around and doing nothing.

"Well Miss McQueen, thank you very much for your help in this matter and if there's anything we can do to help you wit-"

"Actually there is" Rose cut him off typing away on her keyboard "Leave."

"E-excuse me?" Steve stuttered.

"None of you are of any help to me at the moment and even if you were I doubt you would be able to do so because you all look dead on your feet. Frankly at this moment you're all just taking up space in my work area."

"This is Tony's work a-" Banner tried to say.

"Not anymore it's not, at least until I am able to locate the scepter. Until then all of you are to stay out of this room and have no involvement with the search for the magical glow stick of doom."

"But what abo-" Natasha attempted to intervene but Rose cut them off once again by showing them a blown up hologram of all the files related to Hydra and the scepter that Tony had just sent her, probably, from his mobile device and through J.A.R.V.I.S.

"All the information you could possibly have given me is right here in these files and whatever else Tony will be bringing down for me, the only help I will be needing is from J.A.R.V.I.S, so although I have already said it and I hate repeating myself I will say it again. Please leave and dear lord go get some sleep, you all look like hell."

It was harsh and they would probably hate her for it but it had to be done, besides they already don't like her anyways. If she had to play the bad guy so that 'earth's mightiest heroes' could save the day later then what the hell.

It was obvious they wanted to put up a fight because 1) they only knew this girl for maybe 5 min and in that time she had insulted their intelligence and their appearance and 2) they didn't trust her no matter how much Tony vouched for her, but they didn't even realize how tired they were until she, very rudely, pointed it out. So after a moment of silence Clint was the first one to move out the door but not before taking the rest of the cake with him. Then Banner who gave her some rules and warnings about all the equipment in the lab before making his exit. The Widow sent one more warning glare Rose's was before follow to catch up with Banner which left the Captain and Rose alone. Of course Rose wasn't paying any attention to him and continued her speedy typing and occasional mouse clicking.

I know, a lab full of Tony's holographic imaging and the amazing user interface J.A.R.V.I.S that can do anything by command and she still works on a small laptop and its little clicking mouse. But there was one thing her computer had that Tony's didn't and that was security. Every business deal, every contact, every secret file, it was all saved on her computer and she made sure no one, and I mean no one, would be able to hack into or access her computer without her knowing. Her whole life was on this computer and she was going to protect it like her own child.

"I'm guessing there's something you want to say judging by how you're still here and that constipated look on your face." Rose said surprising the Captain who was obviously deep in thought.

He looked her over once more still not sure what to make of her before letting out a deep sigh and letting his relax from their stiff position.

"I just want you to understand that we are trusting you with the task of finding the scepter and want you to know that if you do anything to jeopardize anyone's life you will have to deal with not only me but the rest of the Avengers too. I'm sure you know from some of your buddies in the black market but we are not the kind of people you want as enemies." It wasn't the nicest thing to say but it would have to suffice.

Rose's hands had stopped moving by the time the Captain was done with his speech and her eyes moved up to meet his directly for the first time. She studied him through the lenses of her glasses before nodding her head in acknowledgment.

"I'm glad we're in agreement then Captain, because neither am I." It was the only thing she said before diving back into her work and once again ignoring him.

The Captain, not having anything else to say and understanding this discussion was over, left the lab to go and get some much needed shut eye.

Rose looked up from her work to watch the retreating back of the soldier, once she was sure he was out of range she took out a small device from her bag, resembling a blue tooth, and clicked it on before placing it on her work desk. This device would scramble the signals of anyone trying to listen in on her why also sending out a frequency to destroy any listening devices, old or new, that the Widow or anyone else planted in the lab. Her employers/partners, or buddies as Steve had called them, trust her with the utmost discretion of their identities and their businesses so she was used to this routine. If there was one thing she knew best it was how to keep a secret and there was no way she was going to slip up around the former S.H.I.E.L.D and now the Avengers leading member in keeping and uncovering secrets, Natasha Romanoff. Tony, Thor, and Banner weren't any threat to her, at least not to her illegal business, physically yes, and why they may disapprove they wouldn't get involved. It was Clint, Steve, Natasha, and Tony's new assistant Maria Hill that she would have to worry about. She would have to be careful what she said around all of them, Romanoff the most.

She flicked her hand upward and suddenly she was surrounded by holographic images of files, contact information, emails, photos taken in secret of big 'business men' of the black market, and dates of the latest deals made on the black market. There were people out there who would and have killed for the information she possessed, luckily she wasn't in the habit of sharing it or else the Avengers would have a whole lot more to deal with that some missing glow stick of doom. Every illegal deal from the past 2 years was on display for her and her eyes moved quickly from left to right as she read through the files.

"Alright, let's make a few calls shall we." She said to herself before pulling out her phone and proceeding to dial one of the many numbers she knew by heart.


	3. Chapter 3

**Oh my gosh I can't believe I am getting this out today! I was going to write more for this chapter but then I realized that I'm lazy and I didn't want to do that so I'll just continue it into next chapter even though that means next chapter might be a bit short but that's fine. At least I'll up date sooner am I right! Or maybe not guess we will see. Maybe if you guys review more then I will (hint hint wink wink) but nothings set in stone. Seriously, review, comment. I need the criticism as much as I need the support, the good and the bad. REVIEW!**

 **Anyways hope you like this new chapter because I had a lot of fun writing it and HAPPY NEW YEARS!**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing. Marvel owns everything. Except Rose, I do own her.**

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"It's been a week Tony" Steve stressed finally stopping his pacing and saying what's been on his mind.

"A week and a half actually" Natasha spoke up.

"Actually if we're rounding it then it would be closer to two weeks" Banner cut in not looking up from his work on his tablet that both he and Tony had to settle with since Rose locked herself in the lab and wouldn't let anyone else in.

The Avengers had taken her advice and took some time for themselves, Tony had some quality time with Pepper, Clint disappeared for a couple days but came back looking well rested and feed, Thor had video chat with Jane (with Darcy, Ian, and Eric running around in the background), Natasha and Banner seemed to have spent most of their free time together and grown closer, and the Captain had went out for a few night to either hang out with Sam or time for himself. Now they were all back, rejuvenated and eager for some action but still hadn't gotten any new information on the scepters whereabouts. For every day that Rose stayed locked up in the lab they got more and more anxious.

Tony, surprisingly, had taken it upon himself to be the mediator between the team and Rose since he was the only one she would allow in the lab even if only to except the food he brought her then swiftly kick him out after exchanging a few short words.

"Cap I think you should invest in a watch. Something classy to go with that old spirit of yours, like a pocket watch. That way you won't keep messing up the time or missing things, like a week or let's say 50 years." Tony said grabbing a snack from the fridge of the towers loft where the team had taken to loitering around so they would know right away if and when Rose came out with information for them.

"Stark, we do not have time to waist. The scepter must be found and taken back to Asgard so that your world does not sustain any more damage than it already has." Thor spoke up as he looked out the floor to ceiling windows of the loft down onto the city below.

"Sorry we can't find it fast enough for you buddy, maybe if you and all your pals shared some of your tech with us we might be able to find it faster." Tony sassed.

"Stark we're serious" Steve argued on his last nerve. Tony boosted about how great this girl was at her job but so far they hadn't seen any results and as Thor said time was wasting.

"Well so am I" Tony bit back sharply surprising everyone. "I know you guys want to get the mind controly stick as soon as possible and I know I said that she's the best at what she does but that doesn't mean she's a miracle worker. Look I know you guys are still upset about what she said or at least how she said it but you have to understand that she only did it because she cares. I mean, we looked like shit with legs and yes that means even you princess." Tony said pointing at Thor. "I know that what she says can come off as rude, trust me I know, but she's a really good kid once you get to know her and I know she'll be able to find this glow stick of doom or whatever it is we decided to dub it."

Everyone was silent as they looked at Tony in shock. Never had they heard the self-centered Tony Stark defend someone so animatedly making them pause in their criticism.

"That would have been almost perfect if you had taken out the 'mind controly stick' and 'glow stick of doom'." Clint laughed from his perch on the second floor breaking the tension that had settled in the room.

"Well we work with what we got Legolas" Tony said humorously. "Cap, I know you don't trust her, I didn't when I first meet her, but just give her the chance to prove herself to you and I can promise you she won't disappoint."

"Fine Stark, she gets two more da-" Steve was interrupted as they heard the sound of the lab door slamming open then the shuffling of feet down the hallway.

Everyone turned around it the approaching noise too see exactly the person they were just fight about once again. Or at least they think it was her. The person stopped in the doorway to the loft and with exhausted and blurry eyes looked at all of them standing around and assessed the once again rising tension in the room.

"Hiiiiiiiiiiiii" Rose sighed out weakly and leaned on the wall closest to her for support. To say she was tired was an understatement, she looked like she was going to collapse at any moment. Her hair was a mess of tangles that she had tried to tame by pulling back into a ponytail, there were clear dark bags under her eyes that now looked more dull gray than vibrant green, and although the team had only seen her for a short time two weeks ago they could tell that she still had on the exact same close from that time.

"Speaking of shit with legs…" Tony mumbled loud enough for everyone to hear.

Everyone in the loft watched her as she pushed off from the wall and sluggishly shuffled to the couch. As soon as she reached the edge of said couch she collapsed forward plopping down face first into the material without a word.

Nobody said a word until one minute of silence became five and Steve who was closest to the couch moved forward to see what the young girl was doing.

"Miss McQueen are you alri-" Steve was cut off by a loud snoring sound muffled by the cushions of the couch.

Clint's deep laugh broke through the tension in the air helping everyone to relax. "Well I guess that answers that question" Clint laughed.

"Is Lady McQueen alright?" Thor asked looking to Tony for answers.

Tony chuckled as not even 10 minutes ago that were all arguing about the same girl laying across his couch. How a cute face could make even the scariest of men into big saps.

"Ya, she'll be fine she just needs sleep and a healthy meal once she wakes up. We should let her sleep." Apparently that was all Tony had to say even though they were all just saying how they couldn't waste any more time in finding the scepter.

Steve moved the girl's legs so that she was properly placed on the sofa as Natasha draped a blanket over her that she had gotten from another room.

Everyone very quietly moved out of the loft with a silent agreement that the discussion involving the scepter could wait until Rose woke up.

"J.A.R.V.I.S. light and shutters please" Tony said before following the others to the elevator to give the girl some privacy.

"Yes sir" the AI responded encasing the room in soft darkness, the only sound coming from the soft snoring of the small figure on the couch.

Rose's eyes fluttered open, or at least she thought they did because she really couldn't tell the difference between the darkness of her eye lids to the darkness of the room. Finally her eyes adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the interior of Tony's loft apartment. She pulled the blanket closer to her wanting to cuddle closer to the soft mattress underneath her only for her head to start pounding and her stomach let out a loud growl hoping to annoy her now that it knew she was awake. She groaned in pain as her muscles ached in protest at her movements to sit up or just move in general. Sleeping on a couch is comfortable at first but once you wake up you always end up regretting it. Her neck was stiff from lack of elevation (a pillow) and her legs were cramped since she hadn't been able to stretch out on the sofa. Well at least her eyes weren't burning from lack of sleep anymore.

The last thing she remembered was walking into the loft to see the entire Avengers team looking her way then all could focus on was how soft the cushions of the couch looked.

If she had the date right then tomorrow would mark two weeks since she had come to Avengers tower, two weeks since she had started looking for this glow stick of doom, two weeks since she had had a proper meal, two weeks since she had gotten any sleep that wasn't on one of the desks in the lab, and two weeks since she had taken a shower.

She shivered at that thought. She had pulled marathons like this before and had gone much longer without proper hygiene but it was still just as gross. Now the question was food first or shower.

Her stomach gave out a painful growl answering that question for her. At least the fridge was only a few feet away and she didn't have to walk far. She shuffled over to kitchen in her thick fluffy socks and started to trifle through everything until she finally came across some eggs and sausage she could throw in a pan and cook quickly. As the food was sizzling in the pan she looked over to the counter to see the cold leftover pot of coffee probably from yesterday. She wasn't usually a coffee gal but she would make an exception this morning.

Speaking of which, was it even morning?

"J.A.R.V.I.S. shutters please but keep the lights off I prefer natural lighting."

"Yes ma'am" the eloquent British voice said as the shutters began to move and the room was encased in a soft pink glow.

It was early morning and the sun was just rising making the sky glow of rich pinks and yellows and soft purples. From the towers high luxurious apartment she could see everything that the light touched making New York look peaceful and quiet instead of the noisy busy economic business center that it was.

She scooped her finished food out of the frying pan and poured herself a mug of coffee before taking a seat at the table, purposefully picking one facing the windows so that she could watch the rising sun and the awakening city.

She ate in silence not caring that the bright sun was making her eyes water. For someone as small as she was you would think she wouldn't eat much but let me tell you right now that that was all lies. She could put away large amounts of food easily, that's not to say she ate as fast as she could, no, she would enjoy her food, and once she was done she would go back for seconds and maybe thirds. If she was feeling frisky she would even skip the thirds and go right to dessert.

She took the last sip of her coffee emptying the mug; finally feeling just a little bit more human. The sun had about fully risen and with it would probably come the Avengers so she had to get moving before they caught her and would start questioning her before she had a chance to take a shower. So putting her dishes in the sink she silently crept back to the lab where she had deposited her luggage upon arrival and hadn't moved it since. Thankfully no one else was around as she grabbed her duffle bag with all of her clothes and asked J.A.R.V.I.S. where her room was.

She didn't even look at the interior of the room as long as it had a bed and an adjoining bathroom that she could use. In record time she had the water running and she had stripped out of her old smelly clothes and hopped into the shower even when the water was still chilly.

The shower was heavenly and sure it was even better thanks to Tony's luxurious tastes but she would have been just as happy with a regular overhead nozzle as she was with the six jets massaging her back and working all the aches out of her muscles.

Only long after her skin started to prune did she finally come out. There was a thick fog of steam covering the room and she had to wipe perspiration off of the mirror to be able to see herself. At least she didn't look half dead anymore. Yes, she knew she looked like shit, no need to rub it in. But now that she had gotten some actual sleep (at least 12 hours of it), actually sat down to eat a meal and not just nibbling on one that Tony had brought her, and didn't smell like a sweaty pig anymore she was back to her charming, if not a bit baby faced, self with rosy cheeks from the steam, shiny clear skin, and long luscious blond hair that she loved.

She moved between the bedroom and bathroom getting dressed, drying her hair, brushing her teeth and rummaging through her bags. Once she was done she put on a vintage looking white high collared long sleeve dress with thigh high black stockings and a black beanie on her head. She smiled to herself in the mirror proud with how cute she looked and ready to face the Avengers. She moved to the door of her room and out of habit her hand moved up to push her glasses up her nose only to smack her right in her face.

"Ow!" The instant shock couldn't have hit her any harder than it did. They were missing. She immediately halted her movements and look down to her hand that had smacked her as if hoping that they would suddenly appear there. She ran back to the mirror in a hurry wishing that she was wrong and her head was only playing tricks on her. But it wasn't.

All she saw was her own clear eyes staring back at her and watched them widen comically as dread sunk in.

"Shit!" She cursed loudly and bolted out of her room back to the lofts living area. She was in such a frenzy she didn't even see Steve, Thor and Clint eating their breakfast in the kitchen as she rushed to the couch she had slept on and started to tear it apart cushion by cushion.

The three men stared wide eyed at her as she ran around the loft pushing things out of her way and getting down on all fours to look under the sofa and other furniture. In a matter of minutes the once clean loft now looked like a tornado had went through it and that tornado's name was Rose.

Said tornado was getting more and more hysterical as the minutes past and she couldn't find what she was so clearly looking for, her fast and unclear muttering to herself being evidence of that.

"Lady McQueen?" Thor asked as if not believing that the frantic girl before him was the same calm, cool and collected girl he had meet two weeks ago or the exhausted half dead one he saw last night.

In their two previous encounters with the girl they had witnessed two different sides to small girl and didn't know what to think of this newest one as she continued to run around the room in a frenzy.

"Miss McQue-" Steve was cut off as Rose suddenly shot up from the ground and yelled.

"The lab!" Rose shot out of the room and down the hallway running into a wall from the sound of it, probably from slipping on the wood floors with only socks and no shoes on, and then even louder banging.

The three avengers, curious as to what she was doing, followed her to the lab which was in an even worse shape than the destroyed living room. None of them tried to stop her or questioned her, only stood off to the side and watched in confusion and a hint of amusement, Clint occasionally taking a leisure sip of his coffee but never taking his eyes off the distraught girl.

"Is there a reason why she's destroying my lab?" They heard the tired voice of Tony behind them and turned their heads to see him accompanied by an equally tired looking Banner (probably stayed up working together on something new) and perfect looking Natasha who looked like she had been up for hours.

"Not really all that sure actually" Steve said looking back towards the mess.

Tony hummed in understanding and pushed in front of everyone else to get a better view of his lab and the girl.

"J.A.R.V.I.S. air horn," was the only thing he said before covering his ears, the rest of the team following him, and a loud blaring noise echoed throughout the entire loft.

Rose was so lost in her own world that when the noise went off she jumped a foot in the air and hit her head of the bottom of the table she was currently looking under. The throbbing pain in her head knocked her back to reality as she glared up at Tony from the floor.

"What the hell!"

"I'm the one who should be saying that since you messed up my home, which I hope you know you will be cleaning. Now what are you doing?" Tony said calmly.

"I'm Velma!" Was her cryptic excuse as she began riffling through things again.

"I'm sorry, I'm confused. What does that mean?" Banner said looking just as confused as Thor and Steve whenever someone makes a reference they don't understand.

Tony seemed to understand what she meant as he too started looking around the room only to let out a chuckle a moment later as he seemed to have spotted whatever it was they were looking for. He looked back to the team and mouthed the words 'watch this' before turning back around.

"Rose, they're right over there" Tony pointed to one of the tables in the room, even though he knew Rose wouldn't see and made no move to help her.

Rose's head shot up again from behind a table and began whipping around looking for where he had pointed.

"Where?" Rose asked when she still couldn't find it.

"Over there" Was all Tony offered in response not even pointing in the direction this time. He decided he could have a little bit of retribution since she did destroy not only his lab but the living area too. Revenge was a dessert best served cold, hot and cold that is.

Rose continued to look around trifling through things and moving boxes. Tony seeing she wasn't getting anywhere spoke up again.

"You're cold Rose."

She moved to the right side of the room making Tony call out again.

"Freezing Rose. You're freezing!"

She moved back to the left side of the room as Tony continued to call out temperatures leading her closer to what she was searching for.

"Warmer, warmer! Fire! You are on fire!"

She had stopped at one of the tables in the lab covered in papers that she remembered reading earlier. Pushing some of the papers out of the way she finally uncovered what she had been looking for this whole time.

Rose let out a loud 'ah ha!' as the team watched her put on her square black rimmed glasses that they had seen her wearing when they first meet.

"To be honest I forgot she had those" Clint mumbled voicing everyone's thoughts making them node in agreement.

Rose finally with her glasses back on also had her composure back too and sent an annoyed glare to Tony as she instantly began picking up the trashed lab.

"You know you could've just handed me my glasses instead of making the half blind person run around the cluttered room."

Tony let out a loud yawn and seemed to consider what she said for a moment before dismissing it with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Eh, where's the fun in that. Now come on keep cleaning, you missed a spot."

Rose rolled her eyes at him but smiled at his antics none the less. They hadn't gotten along very well when they had first meet, mostly because Tony had found out she had been hacking into his systems for a while and he wasn't too happy about being one upped but after they had both helped each other get out of a business deal gone sideways then had bonded and realized that they really weren't that different of people, no matter how cliché that sounds. Now she considered Tony family. Well, more like that crazy uncle that you are technically share blood with but is still up for debate. And Tony thought of her like a close cousin. They understood each other and could share things with one another. When they first meet Tony was still selling weapons and a party animal but now he was more level headed, that's not to say he still isn't an ass because he still is, but she could honestly say she liked this Tony a lot better than the one before. He saved New York for goodness sakes!

"Well not that we didn't all enjoy the show but I think we should get down to business" Natasha said with a small smile on her face after watching the small girl spaz out about losing a pair of glasses.

"Well then I suggest you all fill up coffee mugs again and get ready to listen because do I have loads to share with you." Rose said shuffling more papers and moving to sit in front of her computer.

The team moved out of the doorway and spread throughout the lab all of them moving to get comfortable for the long discussion ahead of them.

"Well then Miss McQueen, whenever you are ready." Rogers nodded to her, crossing his muscled arms across his chest and planting a serious look on his face. Was it just her or did his upper torso resemble a Doritos chip?

Rose looked back to her computer and swiftly started typing away on it bringing up all the information she uncovered. "You guys are going to love this."

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	4. Chapter 4

**Let me just say I am so sorry for how long it took me to update, it took me forever just to start writing it then the chapter got so long that it took me forever to get it too where I actually felt it was good enough to post. It was so had to write! Thankfully I had my wonderful sister, my beta, to help me and proof read everything (crowd applause). So I was watching a lot of _Psych_ why I was writing this chapter and apparently it shows in my writing, or so my sister says, if you haven't seen that show then I suggest you get your shit together and watch it because it is hilarious. Anyways hope you guys like the extra long chapter that **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except for Rose, she is mine.**

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"Does everyone remember the plan then?" The Captain asked in full soldier mode.

Tony groaned loudly at the Captain's constant nagging. "Yes just like the last 3 times you made us go over it."

Steve chose to ignore Tony, like usual, and continued to speak to the rest of the people in the lab.

"Then I suggest that you be ready and get some sleep because tomorrow we are going to end Strucker's game of hide and seek." After hearing everything that Rose told them they were all ready to put an end to this game.

Rose had went above and beyond the team's expectations for her and had not only found the current location of the scepter but also much more, with the help of some of her contacts all over the world that owed her a favor or two and were willing to share some of their information and resources with her.

Two years ago, around the time the scepter was taken, it was being held at SHIELD STATION where it was being studied by a SHIELD scientist by the name of Nicholas Cooper. Copper was apparently more than enthusiastic about examining the specification of the scepter and was even able to look into some of Erik Selvig's old notes about the Tesseract. Rose had looked through some of SHIELD's old files and found out the station had a guard by the name of Mark Smith who had worked hard in field assignments for 3 years in hopes of being assigned to the Helicarrier but was considered 'unfit' when Maria Hill, who had joined the Avengers in the lab at this point, had Smith undergo a 'random' psychological assessment that deemed him 'unfit' and he had then been assigned to SHIELD STATION much to his very vocal disagreement as Hill put it. It wasn't long after Smith had been assigned that both he and another HYDRA operative, Mark Basso, decided to take the scepter and kill Copper in the process. The scepter was then delivered to Stucker as per his orders so they could then conduct their own experiments on it.

From that point on Rose had had to dig deeper in order to trace the steps of the scepter. Apparently it had been bouncing around the black market for a while now but before anyone could try to make an offer for it some mysterious buyer from far away would snatch it up only to have the process be repeated months later. It didn't take a genius to figure out that the 'mysterious buyers' was just HYDRA trying to use the black market to move the scepter around incognito. Rose had to admit it was a rather well thought out plan, at least for them. They knew the Avengers and the new SHIELD, under Phil Coulson, would be looking for them so they wanted to move the scepter around separately from them in case they were ever attacked. So they placed the scepter on the black market making it look like they never even had it in the first place while able to hide it from the eyes of SHIELD and the Avengers. They even set up shell companies to buy and sell the scepter whenever it needed to be moved. Like Rose said it was a very well thought out plan, and yet still not enough to hide them from her eyes and ears. They had unknowingly left a virtual trail that only people like her can track. So after following their trail for a couple of days she was finally able to come to the end of the line and find the last place the scepter had been moved to, Sokovia. But she wasn't going to give the Avengers half assed information so she decided to do some reconnaissance of her own by hacking into Tony's satellites and found not only the exact location of the base but also a report on the bases defenses.

The room was silent for a number of reasons after Rose finished explaining everything, the first being they were trying to process all the information just given to them and the second because they were all surprised by how Rose was able to obtain all that information, but then again Tony did say she was one of the best so they shouldn't of expected anything less. The only one not fazed at all was Tony who wore a grin like a proud older brother as he went to ruffle Rose's hair playfully and tell her she did good, not that she even needed him to tell her anything she is very confident in her own abilities. Rose already knew she was one of the best and she wasn't bashful about it, which was one of the reasons why her business was so successful.

So after Rose brought up satellite imaging and laid out a holographic diagram of the base the team put together a full proof plan of attack: Attack. Rose almost fell out of her chair at the simplicity of the plan but since all of them were such power houses the team rarely went for the stealth option, and why would they when they have teammates that can just break through a cement wall.

Rose let out a sigh of relief when they at least suggested landing the ship in the far woods and coming in from that side of the building as it was a less trafficked area and they would have the element of surprise. They all nodded their heads in agreement before calling it a day and everyone filled out of the lab to prepare themselves for tomorrow.

Rose turned back to her computer as everyone started filing out of the lab. She really didn't see a need to be social with the team; it was obvious they still didn't trust her. Maybe once they actually saw the scepter and knew it was put away where no one else could use it, maybe then they would be a little bit more approachable.

"Hey Rose how about you put the toys away and join me for a snack. I know a shawarma joint a few blocks from here." Tony called to her.

"Well actually I was going to finish working on-" Before she could even protest Tony had already grabbed her by the arm and was dragging her out of the lab.

"Come on Rosebud, we haven't seen each other for years, I mean sure we talk on the phone but no physical interaction for years. So we are going to eat together, have a nice chat about what you've been up to these past years and then I can show you all the remodeling we've been doing since the invasion."

She sighed knowing she wasn't going to win this battle against Tony and getting out of the lab did sound amazing. She had been cooped up in the lab for the past week doing research and some sun and fresh air would help her clear her head. Besides hanging out with her favorite millionaire would be refreshing after the cold shoulder the rest of the avengers gave her. "Ok, ok, it's not like I could actually say no to food anyways, I'm starving. Do Avengers meetings usually last that long?"

Tony chuckled still pushing her towards the elevator "You have no idea kid; usually he makes us recite the pledge of allegiance before we start."

She laughed out loud as they entered the elevator and listened to Tony continue to make fun of his team as the elevator started to descend. Thank the lord Tony didn't have any of that crappy elevator music. When the doors finally opened they were in an underground parking garage reserved specifically for Tony. Of course, Tony had at least eight different sports cars parked in the garage because one can never have enough toys.

"Alright kid, you know the drill. Pick one." Tony said with a smug grin on his face.

She couldn't help her own excited smile from showing as she looked over his row of cars. She had always loved driving with Tony mostly because both of them had the same driving technique: fast and loud music.

"That one" She said pointing to a slice dark red Lamborghini.

"Wonderful choice milady" Tony said with a mock bow before both of them climbed in. Soon enough they were strapped in and speeding up a ramp onto the road.

It was obvious Tony just wanted to get away from the rest of the team, or 'freeloaders' as he dubbed them, because he did say the restaurant was only a couple bocks and they could've easily walked it, yet he decided to take a car. Rose knew this meant he planned on staying out for longer than it would take just to get food. Like he said earlier, they hadn't seen each other for a while and there are some things that can't be said over the phone, in case of listening ears.

"So what exactly is shawarma?" She asked genuinely curious.

Soon enough the conversation was flowing easily and they were cracking jokes at the expense of his team and one another. The back and forth banter between the two of them was one of the reasons they had become such good friends in the first place, Tony would make a crude joke, she's have a clever comeback, he would dish out more sass, and she threw it right back at him. Tony told her about the repairs and updates they made to the tower since the invasion, the Iron Legion, the updated satellite system, and he even told her about his contingency plan in case the Hulk went on a rampage that he cleverly named Veronica.

She had to give it to Tony. He always thought of everything. That was probably why they got along so well. They both had a high capacity for technology and thinking outside of the box. She could take apart a hard drive, and maybe a car, and make it better, but Tony could build machines and contraptions with his ideas. She could only wonder what else was going on inside that head of his.

They had long since gotten and finished their shawarma, it was surprisingly good, and were now taking a leisure drive around the city, to see all of the reconstructed buildings, before heading back to the tower to face the rest of the team and back to all the suspicious and distrusting looks directed her way every time she entered a room.

She really couldn't blame them though. Heck she would be suspicious of herself if she was in their shoes. Besides she was used to that kind of treatment. She distracted herself by asking Tony a question.

"So how's Pepper doing? I haven't seen her in forever and she's been stuck with you the whole time, poor girls probably just about lost it!" Rose asked. Rose was happy when she heard that Tony and Pepper had finally gotten together, they were perfect for each other. Pepper was sweet, smart, kind, funny, and after what happened with all that Mandarin business Rose heard she was super strong now too! And Tony, he was, well...at least Pepper can handle him.

"Good, good! Away on business right now but she'll be back soon enough and I know she will be happy to see you. In fact, I think she's already got her hopes up that you two will go on a little shopping date. It'd be a real shame if you skipped town before she was even able to see you. There goes you BFF position."

Rose laughed hearing Tony trying to guilt trip her into sticking around longer. She knew she had a habit of leaving suddenly without telling anyone, but she wasn't used to staying in one place for a long period of time, it wasn't safe.

"That's the best you got? Please, Tony, be serious, it's the Maid of Honor position at your wedding I'm fighting for." Rose laughed again as she watched Tony's eyes go wide with shock. Typical male reaction, as soon as you mention tying the knot they clam up. Tony probably still liked to call himself a bachelor, at least to the media, instead of a taken man, hell, he still thought of himself and acted like a teenager. But Rose would bet money Pepper could knock that kind of thinking out of him real quick, maybe even make him settle down for a change.

Tony recovered quickly and directed the conversation back to her asking about her own nonexistent love life.

"Sorry Tony, no juicy gossip there. Afraid I've been keeping to myself more than I was last time we meet." She told him looking out at the buildings they were speeding past.

"Really, not even a little harmless flirts every now and then? You aren't getting any younger Rose." He asked not taking his eyes off the road.

She frowned at him and smacked his shoulder making him laugh. She was only 23 for crying out loud! She was a baby fawn compared to Tony; the man is in his 40's and still acts like a child. She still had plenty of time to meet a nice guy...well not in her line of work.

Rose sighed loudly, disappointed a bit. Or a lot. "Nope not even a little. I've been to busy these last few years since the invasion."

Her declaration was followed by a long silence as Tony continued to drive, they both listened to the purr of the engine since neither of them had bothered to turn on music for a change. She knew what he was about to say next. She had been expecting this conversation since her plane landed in the country.

"You're getting closer to him aren't you?" Tony finally said.

And there it was. She Tony wouldn't be able to hold off asking for long, he never was very patient.

"No actually, I'm no closer than I was the last time we meet. I'm in exactly the same place." Rose said through her teeth as she glared a hole through the front windshield. A deep frown was plastered on her face and her hands clenched into fists as she remembered flashes of burning embers and the one person responsible.

Suddenly she felt a firm hand on her shoulder calling her back to the present. Tony had pulled the car to the side of the road and shifted in his set to look directly at her. His usual cocky smirk was replaced with his own frown and his eyes were full of steel and promise as he looked at her.

"You'll get him Rose, one day you'll get him. And I'm going to do everything I can to help you until then."

The frown vanished from her face finally to be replaced with a small smile and her eyes softened back to cool green. She patted Tony's hand on her shoulder with her own and nodded to him in thanks.

"Good, now let's get back to the tower before Mother Steve calls us and starts complaining about us being out past curfew." Tony joked, turning back in his set and flooring the gas sending them once again flying onto the road and making Rose laugh in excitement.

Somewhere along the line it was agreed upon that Rose would monitor communications and direct the team to the base. So using satellite imaging, radar, Rose's own (better than Tony's, but don't tell him that) tracking and scanning system, and three well placed tiny cameras on Tony's suit, Cap's helmet and a hidden one she was able to hide on the Hawk because he complained about not wanting to wear one and messing up his aim, she was able to track the team wherever they went and warn them about approaching threats. At the moment she was staring down at her computer screen that showed the Sokovian terrain and 6 blinking dots that represented the team.

She was just happy she got to stay in the lab instead of going with the rest of the team to confront Strucker. Not that she wasn't used to dangerous situations, she just wasn't very well taught in the art of hand to hand combat and preferred to stay behind the safety of her computer screen. So here she sat in Tony's lab watching the team from above like some weird all seeing god. Of course a god wouldn't have Maria Hill constantly asking for updates every five minutes and looking over her shoulder to see the computer screen. Guess Hill's not used to being left out of the action.

She watched through the camera as the team had already confronted some of Strucker's guards and more were already heading their way. Turns out their element of surprise didn't last that long so now they were just barreling through enemies making their way towards the base.

Natasha and Clint hijacked an all-terrain vehicle from some of their fallen foes and were making a fast pace of their own taking down enemies as they went with some cover provided by Tony and Thor. Steve had a ride of his own that he was using, a motorcycle that Tony took the liberty of putting some of his own personal touches on to make it more battle worthy. And the Hulk was doing what he did best: smash.

Rose watched as Tony flew ahead of the rest of his team, probably hoping to find the scepter first, it always was a race with him. Suddenly her screen started to flash a warning at her and beep loudly.

"Tony I'd watch out the base has a-"

"Shit!" Tony cursed loudly ramming into an invisible shield.

"Energy shield." Rose finished a little too late but couldn't help a small laugh at Tony's expense.

"Language! What's the view look like from upstairs?" Cap asked her over the hum of his motorcycle in the back.

"The building is protected by some type of energy shield that my sensors couldn't detect until Tony got close enough, and I mean real close. Strucker's tech is well beyond any other Hydra base you guys have taken so far." Rose said into her headset as she listened to the sound of explosions and gunfire from the other end.

"Loki's scepter must be here. Strucker couldn't mount this defense without it. At long last." Thor said sounding satisfied.

"At long last is lasting a little long boy's" Rose heard Natasha say through the comms as she shot down more soldiers.

Rose watched as Clint ducked behind a tree swiftly to avoiding the shot fired from the bunker in front of him. Clint loaded his bow and sent one of his arrows flying towards the bunker and watched it explode a moment later.

"Yeah. I think we lost the element of surprise." Clint said continuing to use the tree's as cover.

Tony continued to fly around the building taking down guards as he went. "Wait a second. No one else is going to deal with the fact that Cap just said 'language'?"

Rose chuckled listening to the Avengers banter glad she was finally able to see them work as a team instead of them being cooped up in the tower acting like drug addicts waiting for their next hit.

"I know." Steve said followed by a grunt and the sound of an explosion. "It just slipped out."

More of Strucker's men continued to filter out of the base to fight off the Avengers, or try to fight the Avengers since the chances of them winning were slim to none. Tony had to dodge fire from another one of Strucker's big guns as he flew around the base some more trying to find an opening.

"Sir, the city is taking fire." Rose heard JARVIS say into the comms.

"Well we know Strucker isn't going to worry about civilian casualties. Send in the Iron Legion." Tony commanded.

Rose had hacked into the Iron Legions systems as soon as her and Tony had gotten back to the tower yesterday and because the droids had cameras on them as well she was able to watch as the five droids dropped down into the city. All five of them began moving the crowd away and warning the people to move back as 'the quadrant was unsafe'. But the people were already riled up from all the damage and one man threw a bottle of chemicals at one of the droids even though it kept repeating they were only there to help. Thankfully the Iron Legion could be dismantled and replaced so whatever damage the people of Sokovia did could easily be remedied.

"Mankind's greatest threat is itself" Rose muttered turning her attention back to the battle. Well not really a battle that would suggest both sides had an equal chance of winning.

"Clint there's a bunker to your left," Rose tells him scanning over the footage in front of her.

"I see it" He says back as he sneaks through the trees and ducks behind one for cover. He lets an arrow fly towards the bunker and ducks behind the tree again expecting to hear an explosion only for nothing to happen. He loads another arrow quickly and aims only to be knocked off his feet and fall to the snowy ground. Rose watches as the camera is jostled out of position so all she could see was a few trees and the snowy forest floor.

"You didn't see that coming?" Rose suddenly hears an accented voice taunt Clint. A blur passes in front of the camera for a second before Clint gets up and the boy is gone before Clint could shoot him.

"Clint the bunker!" Rose yelled through the mic once again to late as a blast hits him in the side and he falls down to the snowy forest floor with a groan of pain.

"Clint!" Natasha yelled running over to his side.

Rose heard Steve grunt through the comms as he was also hit from the side, but not by a bullet.

"We have an enhanced in the field" Rose heard Steve say before making his way towards the base again. Rose would bet anything that it was the boy she heard taunt Clint over the comms, but how the hell was he able to get all the way over to Cap so fast? She should've been able to track him on her systems but he only showed up for a second before vanishing.

Rose groaned in frustration not able to find any problem with her systems. "Sorry, Cap. I can't track the little shit, you guys are on your own."

"Clint's hit!" Natasha yelled finally making it to Barton's side and starting to patch him up which was hard to do under fire. "Someone want to deal with that bunker?" She yelled as the Hulk came barreling through demolishing the bunker. "Thank you."

"Stark we really need to get inside." Steve yells knocking down more soldiers with his shield.

"I'm closing in." Tony blasted more guards down that tried to fire at him. "Uh Rose, am I...closing in?" Tony questioned sounding unsure of himself. "Do you see a power source for that shield?"

"The northern tower Tony." Rose said to him then continued to gnaw on her bottom lip, a nervous habit of hers. The enhanced was an uncalculated variable that could quickly change the tides of this battle, especially if there were more of them. She might not be able to track the enhanced but she could still watch over the rest of the team, and by Clint's groans of pain she was doing a dandy job of that as well.

"Great I want to poke it with something." Tony said like a child and barreled through more guards and trucks flying up to the stone building and shooting a small missile into the northern side of the building. Immediately the shield began to drop. "Drawbridge is down, people."

Out in the woods Steve was moving to meet up with Thor who had just knocked down the surrounding guards.

"The enhanced?" Thor asked the question on everyone's mind.

"I was just about to ask the same question seeing as Barton's in no shape to answer." Rose said.

"He's a blur. All the new players we faced, I've never seen this. In fact, I still haven't." Steve said looking around him in case the enhanced came back.

Rose rubbed her head in frustration. No wonder she couldn't get a lock on his position early enough to warn anyone, he was moving too fast for her to track. By the time her system was able to transmit a signal he was already in a different place, and with all the other moving bodies around even if he did slow down enough it would be impossible to pick him out from the crowd.

Luckily Rose had placed that camera on Clint and if her eyes weren't playing tricks on her then that blur in front of the camera was the little shit himself; maybe they would get a chance to see the mystery man yet.

"Clint's hit pretty bad, guys. We're gonna need evac." Natasha said.

"I can get Barton to the jet. The sooner we're gone the better. You and Stark secure the scepter." Thor said to Steve trusting them to get the scepter.

"Copy that" Steve sighed.

"Guys, you got more soldiers coming your way" Rose told them.

Steve and Thor (and Rose) watched more Hydra soldiers come over a hill towards them followed by one of Strucker's supped up tanks. "It looks like they're lining up" Thor laughed.

"Well, they're excited." Steve lifted his shield up between them and braced his arms as Thor struck down on it with his hammer sending a shockwave towards the oncoming soldiers, knocking them and the tank sideways.

"Find the scepter" Were Thor's parting words to Steve before flying off to assist Barton.

"And for gosh sake, watch your language!" Tony mocked over the comms.

Steve sighed loudly "That's not going away anytime soon."

Rose chucked at Steve. "Nope" She said popping the p. "Now get your ass moving, Tony's closing in on the scepter but you need to go after Strucker. This whole things was for naught if we can't catch him."

"Rose, language!" Tony chastised her over the comms making her laugh again.

"Tony what's your position?" Rose asks not seeing him on her screen.

"Just entering the building." Tony says followed by the _clanking_ sounds of bullets hitting his suit. "Guys, stop, we gotta talk this through" Tony says only to shoot down all the soldiers at once using his suit. "It was a good talk."

"No it wasn't" Rose says at the same time one of the Hydra soldiers does.

"Um, is there an echo in here? Whose side are you on, Rose?" Tony says with fake anger.

Rose doesn't get a chance to respond as Tony fires his repulsor at the scientist Doctor List, who was trying to erase the files on the computers. Tony steps out of his suit putting it on 'Sentry Mode' and moves towards the computers to start downloading all of the files.

"Okay JARVIS. You know I want it all. Rose make sure Hill is getting all of this." Tony says as he starts the download.

Rose looked over her shoulder to Hill who was looking down at her designated Stark tablet. Maria only nodded at her in confirmation and began to look through all of the files.

"Ya Tony, she's getting all of them." Rose says into her mic and turns back to the battle.

"We're locked down out here" Natasha said.

"Then get to Banner, time for a lullaby" Steve said giving her further orders as he continued to fight his way to Strucker. Rose could help him very little in that endeavor as she couldn't tell the difference between regular Hydra soldiers and Strucker himself. But she could give him a few pointers on where to look, cowards were all the same.

"I know you're hiding more than files. Hey, J, give me an IR scan of the room, real quick." Tony asked looking around the room as JARVIS performed the scan.

"The wall to your left...I'm reading steel reinforcements and an air current." JARVIS said.

"I bet it's a secret door." Rose said excitedly.

"No fair that's what I was about to say!" Tony said back childishly.

"I bet it's a secret dungeon where he keeps all the people he experiments on." Rose said humorously.

"Nah, I bet it's where he keeps his secret tech, like the scepter." Tony bantered back.

"Only one way to find out." Rose cooed excitedly.

"You're on. Please be a secret door, please be a secret door." Tony pushed in the wall and watched as it slides open to reveal a secret passage down. "Yay!" Tony exclaims before making his way inside.

Rose once again checked back to make sure the rest of the team was okay and saw that Natasha and Banner were already making their way back to the jet to meet up with Thor and Clint. And just like she suggested Steve had found Stucker trying to escape through one of the back exits.

"Baron Strucker. Hydra's number one thug." Cap said staring the man down.

"Technically, I'm a thug for SHIELD." Strucker says obviously nervous because he knows he's outmatched.

"Well then technically you're unemployed. Where's Loki's scepter?" Steve asks him intently.

"Don't worry, I know when I'm beat. You'll mention how I cooperated, I hope."Strucker said trying to plead for his own life. It made Rose sick to her stomach. In her line of work she met many men like him, when things started getting hard they tried to opt out and save their own skin.

"I'll put it right under illegal human experimentation. How many are there?" Steve didn't have time to react as he saw a burst of red and was thrown down a flight a stairs. Steve ran up the stairs and made it to the top just to see the second enhanced back away and slam the heavy metal doors in front of her. "We have a second enhanced. Female. Do not engage." Steve said to the team before returning his attention back to Strucker.

Rose slammed her hands down on her desk in frustration. "You have got to be shitting me" Rose cursed. It was bad enough the first one got through her sights but for another one to do the exact same thing just ticked her off. "Now how the hell was this one able to get through?"

"You'll have to be faster than-" Strucker didn't get to finish as Cap kicked up his shield and Strucker got a face full of vibranium.

"Guys, I got Strucker." Steve told the team.

"Yeah, I got...something bigger." Tony said back anonymously making Rose turn her attention back to Tony to see had had made his way down the passage.

"Tony, I can't see. Turn on your video fed" Since the other camera was on Tony's suit he had another one on him he was able to turn on incase he ever had to leave it. Rose waited as the video screen popped up on her computer. "Whoa" Was all Rose could say at what she saw. Aliens. The ones from New York, and one of the giant whales Tony said he flew through. Robots too, like they were trying to build their own form of the Iron Legion. "Ok, so we were both wrong."

"Or, we were both right." Tony says as he moves through the basement. "Thor, I got eyes on the prize." Rose sees the scepter on her video screen for a moment until the video suddenly buffers and goes dark.

"Tony, I lost the video fed. Are you still there?" Rose called confused on why the video cut. She typed away on her computer trying to bring it back with no success. When no response from Tony comes she calls to him again, probably a small glitch in the signal. "Tony? Tony, can you hear me?"

She pauses waiting to hear his voice over the mic, but none comes. Rose starts to panic as her instincts or woman's intuition start yelling at her something is wrong, and she always trusts her instincts, it's what's kept her alive thus far. She quickly starts checking all of her signals and transmitters to find the source of the problem. Finding nothing wrong on her end she decides that whatever shut the video fed happened on Tony's end.

Because Tony's comm was completely down she couldn't get a lock on his position, something was jamming her signal. Were the steel reinforcements JARVIS had said were in the basement messing with her signal? Either way she had to find Tony.

"Steve, Tony isn't respondi-"

"Rose, I'm here" Tony's voice finally came through the comms filling her with relief. "Sorry kid, this place must be messing with our comms. I've got the scepter and I'm on my way up."

"Tony are you okay?" Rose asked noticing the slightest tremor in his voice.

"I'm always okay, Rosebud. We'll be home soon okay." Tony said confidently.

Rose was not fully convinced, but decided not to pressure him. "Alright, well, come back safe, you crazy bastard." Rose mumbled the last part before turning her mic off and leaning back in her chair and lets her head rest on the back of it.

It was a comfortable reclining leather office chair that Tony had gotten for her when he saw that her back was aching from leaning over the table all the time and she had been using one of the simple metal ones around the lab making her butt hurt. He didn't ask her if she needed it, just silently switched out the chairs and continued on. That's how it always been between them. The silent understanding they had with one another, being able to communicate without words, knowing one another's little quirks, like a family would. It helped that they were practically the same person too.

Which was how she knew something wasn't right with him. He might have covered it up right away but she was sure something had spooked him. After the invasion Tony had gone off the deep end. Rose had some business she couldn't walk away from but she was able to hear about all of it from Pepper. She had said he was prone to hysterics and had a bad case of insomnia. He kept making suit after suit and that was the very reason both him and Pepper almost got killed. Thankfully he was able to snap out of it and his and Pepper's relationship actually bloomed out of all the destruction, go figure. Rose wasn't able to be there for him then but she was here now and she was going to make sure to watch his back.

Yeah, she decided not to pressure Tony, but that didn't mean she was going to let the subject drop.

"JARVIS." Rose called to the ei.

"Yes Miss McQueen" The interface responded instantly.

"You keep a record of all of Tony's vital signs right?" Rose asked.

"Yes ma'am."

"Can you give me the records for the last five minutes? Bring it up on screen."

"Of course ma'am, please realize that this is restricted information and I am programmed to keep Mister Starks information confidential from outsiders but Mister Stark has you as one of his emergency contacts and therefore allows you to have access to this information." JARVIS said as he brought up Tony's vital signs to holographical project in front of her.

"Thank you JARVIS, and don't worry no one but me is going to be seeing this." Hill had long since left the lab to go over more of the files and hopefully find more information on our two enhanced.

Rose watched the replay of Tony's vital signs and heart rate. There was an unnatural spike in his heart rate and breathing for a short time and unusual amount of brain activity. Now she wasn't a master biologist like Doctor Banner but if she had to guess she would give her right foot saying something scared Tony, bad. This is the man that fought off aliens in New York and deals with freaky shit on a daily basis. What could have scared him?

"JARVIS keep a close watch of his vital signs, particularly at night. If he was scared by something odds are it's probably going to come back to haunt him in his sleep. Alert me if there are any irregular spikes."

"Yes ma'am. The team is now loading onto the jet and will be due back in one hour. And Doctor Cho is making her way from Seoul to treat the injured Mister Barton." JARVIS responded.

"Doctor Cho, huh?" Rose said thoughtfully as she leaned back in her swivel chair and bit her lip. "JARVIS, pull up all the files on Doctor Cho. I'm a quick study."

"JARVIS take the wheel" Tony said as the pilots set started to slide backwards so he could stand up.

"Yes, sir. Approach vector is locked."

Stark made his way to the back of the jet where Thor and the Captain were standing over the scepter.

"It feels good, yeah? I mean you've been after this thing since SHIELS collapsed. Not that I haven't enjoyed our little ragtag parties, but…" Tony said.

"No, but this...this brings it to a close." Thor said obviously pleased to have the scepter out of enemy hands.

"As soon as we find out what else this has been used for. I don't just mean weapons. Since when is Strucker capable of human enhancement?" Steve input.

"Banner and I'll give it a once over before it goes back to Asgard. Is that cool with you? I mean, just a few days until the farewell party. You're staying right?" Stark shot off with his fast mouth and slick words, he could out talk anyone.

"Yes, yes, of course. A victory should be honored with revels." Thor said nodding his head in agreement.

"Yeah who doesn't love revels? Captain?" Tony asked seeing the serious look on Steve's face.

"Hopefully this puts an end to the Chitauri and Hydra, so. Yes, revels." The Captain smiles at them all of them obviously tired from all the fighting, not just from today but from all the work they put into finding the scepter.

"You know, I'm still waiting." Tony says.

"For what?" The Captain sighs anticipating another one of Stark's antics.

"For you to say I was right for bringing Rose in and for you to say 'thank you Tony for showing us we were wrong and humbling us'." Tony said his cocky grin back on his face.

"I will admit, Lady McQueen did quick and efficient work." Thor said.

"There you see, now was that so hard?" Tony patted Thor on the back before turning to the Cap with an expectant look.

Steve sighed deeply and hung his head. "She did very good work." Steve said looking back up to meet Stark's eyes. "But there's still the matter of her profession that we've been ignoring until now because you said she could help us find the scepter."

"Which she did, so don't you actually owe her your thanks." Tony retorted. "Listen, you don't even know the girl. None of you do. So how about you try and use the time between now and the party to try and get to know her a little bit. Then you can make all the judgments you want." Tony spoke loudly enough that he gained the attention of both Romanoff and Banner who had stopped chatting.

"He's right you know." A deep gravelly voice said from the back of the jet gaining everyone's attention.

Natasha quickly went over to Barton's side seeing he was once again awake and told him not to talk and get more sleep. Her concerns were only to be shooed away by the uncaring Barton as he looked over at Tony.

"How old is that girl Tony? What, like, 19? 20?" Clint asked.

"Twenty-three actually. Why? Your girlfriend not cutting it anymore?" Tony laughed even though he would never let Rose date someone as old as Clint.

Clint groggily chuckled. "I don't have a girlfriend. Just figured she looked a little young to be involved in that kind of work. Kind of reminds me of someone else I know." Clint said looking at Natasha. "She must of had it rough and had to grow up pretty fast to survive that kind world."

Everyone saw the dark look cross Stark's face for a moment but no one commented on it knowing it probably had something to do with Rose's past and they would get no information about that from Tony who had been dodging their questions since she arrived.

"Yeah, she did." Tony said hauntingly before shaking out of his somber mood and plastering his carefree grin back on his face. "Well better rest up, Barton. We still have a while until we land and once we go you are being carted off to Doctor Cho who will have you fixed up in no time."

Tony took one last thoughtful look at the scepter before reaching up and slamming the case shut.

Rose had been in the lab, like always, when Doctor Cho and her team had arrived, escorted in by Hill. The good Doctor didn't even seem to notice her as she quickly started prepping the room for surgery. Helen Cho, as it turns out, was a world renowned geneticist who made new discoveries in the rebinding or regeneration of human tissue using a machine called the Cradle. Doctor Cho's lab was stationed in South Korea where she did most of her work and research.

Rose was just itching to see what kind of toys the good doctor brought with her today. She really wanted to see all the equipment that they brought with them, maybe they were planning on making Barton half robot!

Being as quiet as possible, Rose stood from her chair and snuck over to the glasses off area where Cho and her assistants were setting up. Rose entered the room unnoticed by anyone, or even if they did notice they didn't say anything, and started looking over the shoulders of everyone to see what they were working on. She looked over all the specs of the equipment and was itching to take something apart and tinker with it. Some people might call her nosey, but she preferred the term curious.

"Excuse me, who are you?"

Rose looks up to see that the doctor finally realized there was another person in the room and decided to address her.

"Who me?" Rose points to herself acting like she didn't understand what the doctor was asking. "Oh, I'm nobody important. I'm just here visiting a friend. I saw you guys walk in and got curious so I decided to investigate." It wasn't technically a lie. She was here to visit Tony and she was curious how this Cradle thingy worked.

She was a programmer/hacker/many other illegal things one can't put on a resume, she didn't know that much about genetics but from what she did know Doctor Cho's work was very new and very exciting. Cho and Banner must get along wonderfully when they start geeking out together.

Helen looked over the girl in front of her and deemed her non-threatening but still untimely as she was still preparing for Barton's arrival.

"Well as you can see we are dealing with very delicate and expensive equipment here, so if you could please step away." Helen said very professionally and motioned to the exit.

Rose could tell when she was being dismissed and underestimated. People naturally start making judgments about others when they first see them and sadly that's always what gets them killed. But Rose could understand why this sophisticated and intelligent lady was already making judgments about her; she really didn't look very threatening at the moment with her faded jeans, Bon Jovi t-shirt, and her chucks sneakers. That still doesn't mean Rose liked people thinking of her as incompetent or just another dumb blonde, Rose was used to playing into that role and using it to her advantage.

Besides it looked like this Doctor Cho could loosen up a bit. Rose wondered for a moment if Tony always felt like this when he was messing with or agitating the Captain. It was thrilling to watch people's calm fasad unravel.

"What's this?" Rose asked side stepping Cho and picking up a piece of equipment. Helen tried to grab it from her hands but Rose once again side stepped her and went around the other side of the table.

"That is a very important piece of equipment that I am going to have to ask that you put back down." Cho said not taking her now wide eyes off the device in Rose's hand in case she had to make a dive for it.

"What does it do? It doesn't look that imp-" Rose cut off as she faked dropping it and nearly caught it before it could hit the ground and break. "Wow. That could have been bad!"

Rose laughed as she looked over at the good doctor that had gone pale and looked like she had just lost years of her life. But it didn't last long as Cho face turned wild and she let out a small battle cry before racing around the table for Rose yelling at her to put the device down.

All of Cho's assistants exited the lab without looking back at the two women as they raced around the table; one trying to catch the other and the other taunting her as she continued to run away.

"What are you doing?" Maria Hill yelled making the two women pause.

"Hill, the doctor and I were just getting to know each other. What up? How close is the team?" Rose asked once again dodging one of Cho's swipes for the device.

Maria sighed loudly and tried to rub away the cress in her brow, she was finally seeing why Rose and Tony got along so well. They were both children, sadistic children.

"That's actually why I'm here. The jet will be landing in five. Doctor Cho, I suggest you finish any last minute preparations and, um, maybe fix your appearance a bit."

Rose couldn't help but laugh at that and looked over at the doctor. It's true, the good doctor looked like she just got into a wild tousle, her face was flushed from all the yelling and running, her hair was in disarray falling out of it perfect bun, and uniform scrubs were disheveled. Helen blushed with embarrassment at Hill's words and quickly started to right herself.

"Better freshen up Doc. You wouldn't want Prince Thor to see you like that now would you? Then again maybe he likes that kind of thing. I mean, he is dating the girl who hit him with her car twice, so it's hard to say what his type is." Rose laughed and watched Helen turn even redder.

Apparently that was the wrong thing to say as it turned Hill's attention back to herself.

"And you!" Maria said sending a chastising glare Rose's way. "Don't you have more work to do?" Maria said like I was one of Tony's employee's instead of doing him a favor.

"I got bored." Rose said simply. "Are you going down to the landing bay? Tell Tony I'm in the lab will you." Rose said before turning around and throwing the device towards Cho who fumbled with it for a moment before catching it and releasing a deep sigh of relief.

Maria sent Rose one more disapproving look as she passed before Hill made her way down to the jets landing area.

The jet lands in its designated area and Barton is carted off for treatment circled by Cho, her assistants, and Natasha. Maria Hill walked up the ramp of the jet to address Tony.

"Lab's all set up boss. And Rose is already there waiting for you."

Tony turned around in the pilots set and pointed at Steve. "Uh, actually, he's the boss. I just pay for everything, and design everything, and make everyone look cooler." Tony sassed making his way off the jet.

Steve ignores him and turns to Hill. "What's the word on Strucker?"

"NATO's got him."

"The two enhanced?" Steve questions and moves to look down at Hill's tablet with a picture of the two as she starts to verbally report everything on the two.

"Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. Orphaned at ten when a shell collapsed their apartment building. Sokovia's had a rough history. It's nowhere special but it's on the way to everywhere special. Rose was able to find some past footage of them before Strucker's experiments and she was able to get the footage of the girl after she attacked you, but it seems the boy keeps eluding her. You can imagine how happy she is." Hill said dryly.

"Their abilities?" Steve questioned as they walked into the building.

"He's got increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis. Her thing is neuro electric interfacing, telekinesis, and manipulation." The Captain paused and gave her a blank look as they stopped in front of the elevator. "He's fast and she's weird." Hill said simplifying everything.

"Any idea why Rose couldn't track them?"

"She says it's because the boy was moving around too fast for her computer to keep up and she thinks the girl's powers are interfering with any electronic signal. She's already working on a new program to fix the holes." Hill says leaving out the part where she walked in on Rose taunting Doctor Cho, the Captain would find out soon enough that Rose was a miniature version of Tony, but no less trouble.

And besides the girl was starting to grow on her, just like Tony did.

"Well, they're going to show up again." Steve nodded and handed her back her tablet as the elevator dinged its arrival.

"Agreed. File says they volunteered for Strucker's experiments. It's nuts." Hill says shaking her head.

"Right. What kind of monster would let a German scientist experiment on them to protect their country?" Steve countered and pushed one of the elevators buttons.

"We're not at war Captain." Maria said.

"They are." The Captain said before the elevator doors closed.

"Honey, I'm home!" Is the first thing Tony says as he stunts into the lab after checking up on Clint.

Clint was already being worked on by Doctor Cho in the small room off to the side. He really did look worse for wear, by the time they had rolled him in he had gone pale from the major loss of blood. He was lucky we had Doctor Cho on stand by and that Natasha was always watching his six. Banner had immediately come to the lab after landing (and finding a shirt) and started setting up his and Tony's area so that they could start running some tests on the scepter. Rose had seen pictures of the scepter before but finally being the same room with it, she could tell why the team was so worried about it getting into the wrong hands. That thing was giving off some major bad vibes making her skin crawl if she just looked at it for too long. There was no way she was moving any closer to that thing than was absolutely necessary.

So she busied herself with her own work ignoring the big pointy object in the room.

Rose was sitting in front of her laptop typing away trying to figure out how to upgrade her systems so she would be able to track the wonder twins. She might be able to find a way to get around Wanda's powers since it seemed she gave off a weird energy signal, but the fast one, Pietro, he was the problem. A computer can only run so fast without it over loading and frying all the circuits, but where other people saw a wall Rose saw a challenge.

"Oh Darling! Did you bring home the bacon?" Rose plays along as she spins around in her chair.

"Sadly, no. We weren't able to make any pit stops on our way back thanks to someone" Tony says ominously looking over at Clint.

"How's he doing?" Banner asked making his way over to Tony.

"Unfortunately, he's still Barton." Tony said as Rose turned back to her computer.

"That's terrible," Banner joked making Rose laugh. She didn't know the doctor had a sense of humor; it was refreshing to see he wasn't all doom and gloom.

"He's fine. He's thirsty." Tony said as he began walking over to stand in front of the scepter ready to get to work. "Alright. Look alive, JARVIS. It's play time. We've got a couple days with this joystick so let's make the most of it. Update me on the structural and compositional analysis."

"The scepter is alien. There are elements I can't quantify." The ei's voice came from above.

"So there's elements you can." Tony said more to himself as he walked over to make a protein shake for Clint.

"I'll have a milkshake if you're taking orders." Rose called to him, her only response being a hand wave back.

"The jewel appears to be a protective housing for something inside. Something powerful." Rose stopped typing as she listened to what the ei was saying to once again look over to the glow stick of doom.

"Like a reactor?" Tony questioned pouring some nasty looking green drink in plastic cups, making Rose's lips curl in disgust.

"Like a computer. I believe I'm ciphering code." Even JARVIS sounded a bit awed at what he was saying.

Seeing as that was all JARVIS could tell them at the moment Rose decided to get back to work on her programming and she still had more boxes of papers she needed to properly scan and file away. Yes it was secretarial work and Tony could find someone else to do it but she liked how it kept her busy and how it kept her mind from wandering to less happy things.

Ten minutes later Tony walked back into the lab practically having to pull Banner away from his Doctor Cho's work.

"What's the rumpus?" Banner asked making Rose halt once again in her own work as she watched the two curiously.

"Well, the scepter. You see, we were wondering how Strucker got so inventive." Tony swiped up his own little pad as he continued to talk. "So I've been analyzing the gem inside you may recognize." Tony flicked the pad into the air and a golden sphere shape appears.

"JARVIS." Banner acknowledges the ei, knowing what it is immediately.

"Doctor." JARVIS says back in greeting.

"Started out, JARVIS was just a natural language UI. Now he runs the Iron Legion. He runs more of the business than anyone besides Pepper." Tony turned to Banner trying to get his point across.

"Oh" Is all Banner says not at all impressed. Rose snorted at that, it was good to know that Tony was around more people who didn't take any of his crap or his boasting, in fact it seemed they were actually humbling Tony bit by bit. Of course, he was still a cocky asshole.

"Top of the line." Tony stressed his point once more.

"I suspect not for long." JARVIS says making a smile come to Rose's face knowing that comment that about her.

"Don't worry, J-man. You'll always be number one." Rose says trying to sooth the ei.

Tony ignored them as he flicked the pad at the scepter collecting some data onto the small device.

"Meet the competition." Tony says ominously as he once again flicked the screen out into the air making another 3D image appear in the middle of the lab. Both Rose and Banner stared in awe at the blue sphere in front of them. The same creepy blue as the gem in the scepter, the same creepy blue that reports say people's eyes turned after they were brainwashed by Loki. Rose didn't even know when she had stood up but she was already making her way over towards the image to stand next to the Tony and Banner.

"It's beautiful." Banner said in awe.

"If you had to guess, what's it look like it's doing?" Tony barely even got to finish his question before Banner was answering it.

"Like it's thinking." Banner still didn't take his eyes off the image in front of them. "I mean this could be a...it's not a human mind, it…"

"Um-um" Tony encouraged him to keep talking.

"I mean, look at this? Their like neurons firing," Banner said looking over the image as he walked around it. Rose couldn't help but walk closer to the image as she watched it move and shift. If this was what the rest of the universe was able to accomplish then maybe Loki was right. Humans are ants. Suddenly she had an overwhelming feeling like she was trapped in the ocean and she was the tiniest of sea creatures.

"Down in Strucker's lab I saw some fairly advanced robotic work. Rose even you saw some of it." Tony said to her making her snap out of whatever trance she was in and look at Tony. She didn't miss the haunted look in his eyes before it was covered up again by a look she knew all too well. Tony had an idea. And things rarely worked out well when he got ideas. Rose continued to listen as he spoke. "They deep-sixed the data, but...I gotta guess he was knocking on a very particular door."

"Artificial Intelligence," Both Bruce and Rose say at the same time. They both look at each other surprised they were on the same train of thought.

"This could be it, Bruce. This could be the key to creating Ultron." Tony excitedly said to the Doctor.

"Wait, am I missing something? What's Ultron?" Rose asked looking at both of them confused.

"I thought Ultron was a fantasy." Banner laughed, both of them ignoring her question.

"Yesterday it was. If we can harness this power, apply it to my Iron Legion protocol." Tony said trying to convince Bruce still ignoring Rose.

"Will someone please tell me what Ultron is!" Rose yelled frustrated at being left out of the loop.

Tony quickly turns to her and begins to explain. "I had a thought a while back; I couldn't help but wonder what's going to happen to the world if we aren't there to save it. That's where Ultron comes in. Ultron is artificial intelligence peacekeeping program. Rose think of it, if we were able to make a program that could do 10x the work we do now. It would make the Avengers obsolete."

Rose shook her head at what Tony was saying. It was impossible. There was no way one program would be able to do all that work, and even if it could, should they really give that much power to one person, or program. America has a democracy for a reason. Oh, crap, she saw starting to sound like the Captain now. Miss America to the rescue!

"I don't know, Tony. Your ideas always have repercussions, remember the jock strap incident." Rose said once again gnawing on her bottom lip.

"That was an accident and you know it." Tony said humorously. "Rose, you're the best programmer, next to me, and Banner no one knows science like you do, except for once again me. I know that if the three of us work together Ultron won't just be a fantasy anymore."

Banner was shaking his head obviously not wanting to be a part of this.

"This is a mad-sized if, Tony." Banner said as he started to pace around the lab with Tony hot on his heels.

"Our job is 'if'. What if you were sipping margaritas on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green? Not looking over your shoulder for Veronica."

"Don't hate, I helped design Veronica."

"As a worst-case measure, right? How about a best-case? What if the world was safe? What if the next time aliens roll up to the club, and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer."

"The only people threatening the planet would be people."

Rose couldn't help but remember what she had said earlier, when the people of Sokovia attacked the Iron Legion. Man kind's greatest threat is itself. Rose hadn't necessarily lost faith in humanity, but she did know the world was a cruel place with cruel people. Cruel people that even she didn't do business with, and people that she would rather be six feet under. Maybe Tony was right, maybe the world did need Ultron.

"I want to apply this to the Ultron program. But JARVIS can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here, that's three days, give me three days."

"So you're going for artificial intelligence and you don't want to tell the team." Surprisingly Banner didn't sound as accusing as she thought he would've, instead he looked a little bit...excited.

"Right. That's right, you know why, because we don't have time for city hall debate." Rose knew he was referring to Captain when he said that. "I don't want to hear the 'man was not supposed to meddle' medley." And look, he even just quoted Thor too. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"Sounds like a cold world, Tony." Banner said making a shiver go up Rose's spin with just the idea of it.

"I've seen colder." Tony said making Rose pause as she once again saw that haunted look in his eyes, this time it was there longer as he continued to try and persuade Banner. "This one, this very vulnerable blue one? It needs Ultron.

Peace in our time. Imagine that." Tony said walking away from Banner back to the holograms to continue working on the scepter.

"Banner, he's going to do this with or without you. You might as well hope on bored and make sure it at least done right." Rose said to the Doctor and ignores the offended look Tony sends towards her. "Well, I got nothing better to do so I guess I'm in. Plus I'll always help you Tony, even if it's literally the worst idea you've had since Madrid." Rose laughed remembering that incident, the people in Madrid certainly still do.

Banner shook his head and fisted his fingers through his hair with a groan of frustration. "Fine, fine! I'll help!"

Tony and Rose high-fived happy with their successful tag team routine, when both of them work for something, no one can ever say no.

"Alrighty team! Let's get cracking; we've only got three days. Hope neither of you were planning on getting any sleep."

Rose laughed as Banner stomped over to his work station.

"Bruce, you can pout all you want, but I know you're secretly excited to see where this will lead, it's the scientist in you." Banner looked at her silently and saw the excitement and wonder reflected in her green eyes that he knew were in his own. "I know because I'm excited too."

Rose practically bounced back to her desk and all three of them began working none stop for hours, only taking small breaks to shove some food down their throats as they went over all the data. Rose was especially tired since she had been working none stop the week before. Thankfully Tony let her take extra time to rest since he said he didn't want her dying in his lab and getting in the way of his work.

The next three days were trying, literally, they tried everything. Tony even blew up a few things, but no matter what they did it just wasn't enough. They were obviously missing something but none of them could figure out what and it was driving them mad; teeth grinding, hair pulling mad.

The only thing they could think to do at this point was to take a step back and look at it from a different angle. Lucky the party was tonight and they were being forced to get out of the lab and be social. Oddly enough, no one else from the team had tried to drag them from the lab so Rose could only assume they were used to Tony and Banner locking themselves up in the lab for a few days. Rose had found out that Bruce and her got along wonderfully. They both loved to talk about the places they traveled to and the people they met, that is, when they weren't talking about the equations and neurons.

Rose had thrown in the towel around noon, much to Tony's protest claiming they were almost there, and she went back to her room for some much needed rest before the party and to freshen up and get dressed.

She wanted to make a good impression on Tony's friends and the rest of the team since this would be one of the first times that would actually have time to socialize. Tony would be too busy entertaining guests and Pepper couldn't make it to the party so she wouldn't have either of them there as a buffer. It was either talk to people at the party and make new friends or not go at all, and Tony would be pissed if she didn't go so that left only one option.

She made sure she dressed appropriate for the party and didn't show up wearing jeans and band t-shirt to a black and white event. She had to careful not to look like a child in a swarm of adults and a dress seemed too fancy for tonight. She ended up with a pair of floral black, silver and, and dark red leggings, her matching knit dark red sweater (one that didn't swallow her whole), and her pair of silver point toe heels. She matched it with a big silver necklace that dangled around the collar of the sweater and put on her black leather jacket for badass effect.

She left her hair to fall down her back in the usual long waves; trying to style her hair was far too tedious of work for her. She would much rather save that kind of detailed work for her programs. She didn't really wear any eye makeup because of her glasses and because she thought it got in the way of her everyday life, but she did love lipstick. It made her already lovely pouty lips that much more noticeably and paired with her more than generous chest men didn't know where to look let alone what to say. Yet another thing she used to her advantage.

So with a coat of deep red on her lips and her black square glasses perched on her nose she winked at herself in mirror and she left her room in search of Tony.

After a quick chat with JARVIS she found out Tony was still in the lab working on the project and trying every variable known to man. The man was nothing if not persistent.

Sure enough, once she walked into the lab there he was going over all the data over and over. She knew Tony had heard her enter thanks to her heels but he didn't acknowledge her in the least and kept working.

Rose looked him over and saw he hadn't left the lab to even get ready for his own party yet. Well since Pepper wasn't here that meant Rose would have to be the one to put her foot down and drag him away. And she would literally drag him if need be.

"Come on Tony, shut it down." Rose finally said putting her hands on her hips in her 'no bullshit' pose.

"Just a few more minutes," Tony called over his shoulder not wanting to look away from his work.

"That's what you said a half hour ago Tony. JARVIS back me up here, please." Rose called to the ei.

"I'll continue to run variations on the interface, but you should probably prepare for your guests. I'll notify you if there are any developments." JARVIS said.

Tony sighed loudly before giving up. "Fine you guys win, like always. Thanks, buddy, keep me updated."

"Enjoy yourself, sir."

Tony smiled and let Rose grab his arm to drag him out of the lab. "I always do, buddy."

"Come on, Tony. You only got 30 mins to get ready. Then you can introduce me to all of your adorable friends."

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 **REVIEW! I just want reviews! (Cries alligator tears)**


	5. Chapter 5

**Yes I am still alive and so is the story. Sorry it took so long for me to update but I've been working on other stories and as I said in the first chapter this is just something fun for me to do on the side, but for those of you that did review on my story thank you so much its what keeps me writing. To everyone that reviewed, you guys are the reason this story continues! You guys are great! I LOVE REVIEWS!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Avengers but I do own Rose she is mine. Mine I tell you!**

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The party was going well, or at least as well as a Stark party can go without people getting drunk off their asses and breaking shit. Before the guests had even arrived Tony had gotten all the Avengers, Maria Hill, and Rose together for a victory shot and, in his own personal and slightly insulting way, congratulated everyone on a job well done while also singing praise to himself most of all.

When the guests started filing in Rose was relieved to be able to see at least one familiar face in the mix. The Lieutenant Colonel and herself had meet many times before when Tony was still just a rich playboy and didn't have the title of Iron Man attacked to him. When Tony and Rose would go partying, either Rhodey or Pepper were there to drag Tony to bed when he was to drunk to find it, which was how she was able to meet both of them. Granted their first impression of her wasn't that great since she had drunk just as much as Tony and ended up spending the night in Tony's suit on his couch in Rio. It had been the first time she meet Rhodey and Pepper and the first week she meet Tony.

Since then Tony and Rose had gone to many parties together and gotten drunk many many times together, but Pepper and Rhodey were always there. She wasn't as close to Rhodey as she was Tony but he was still a good friend of her's, and she had very few of those.

She jogged (as much as a girl can jog in heels) up to Rhodey and hugged him exchanging pleasantries after he got over his surprise of seeing her in New York, let alone America. Rhodey knew enough of her background that she was able to explain how Tony had asked for a favor and she ended up helping the Avengers with finding the scepter. He praised her for her hard work and hugged her again obviously happy she was making friends with the Avengers and not locked away in a cell somewhere. Unlike Tony, Rhodey had always tried to get her away from the illegal businesses and disapproved every time she mentioned it, but thankfully he was kind and sensible enough not to really do anything about it or mention her to any of his superiors.

Eventually Tony had spotted both of them and dragged them over to the bar after he saw their empty hands and made sure to get both of them a drink.

At the moment Rhodey was telling Tony, Thor, and Hill about a mission he had gone on in the War Machine suit and Rose could only chuckle at how very unimpressed all three of them were with the story. And she had to admit; after hearing about half the missions Tony went on as an Avenger she wasn't all that impressed either.

Rose took another sip of her champagne and thanked the good lord she was twenty three years old and didn't have to worry about any laws preventing her from having a good time. Not that she would, or used to, care about any such laws before, but tonight she really needed something to help with her nerves. She couldn't explain it but there was just something in the air tonight that was making her anxious. Maybe she was just nervous about meeting people?

She would have gotten something harder to drink but she was trying to impress certain people and she didn't want to make a habit of meeting new people when she was 'shit faced', as Rhodey has so politely recalled their first meeting time and time again. Apparently she was a real charmer when she was drunk, what else could explain why these people still talked to her.

Finally Rhodey got to the punch line of his story and both Tony and Thor were unimpressed with the ending. Rose zoned out of the conversation, letting her eyes sweep over the room and its occupants, until she heard Rhodey mention Pepper.

"So where's Pepper? Is she not coming? I thought for sure she would be here since Rose is in town?"

Tony shook his head disappointingly.

"Hey, what about Jane?" Hill asked Thor even though she already knew Jane wasn't here. "Where are the ladies, gentlemen?"

"Well Ms. Pott's has a company to run." Tony said in defense of his own manly pride and for Peppers sake.

"Yes, I'm not even sure what country Jane is in. Her work on the convergence has made her the world's foremost astronomer." Thor was obviously proud of his girlfriend's work, though Rose highly doubts he didn't know where she was all, if not most, of the time.

Rose saw the competitive gleam in both their eyes and knew Thor had just started a pissing match.

"And the company that Pepper runs is the largest tech conglomerate on earth. Its pretty exciting."

"There's even talk of Jane getting a...um, uh... Nobel prize?" Thor said quickly purposefully stuttering in his words to make it seem like it wasn't a big deal. And Rose once again caught herself thinking that someone, most likely Doctor Foster herself, had to at one point explain what a Nobel Prize actually was to him.

Finally Hill spoke breaking up the two meat heads.

"Yeah, they must be busy because they'd hate missing you guys get together." Hill said sarcastically before fake coughing while saying testosterone and excusing herself with Rhodey.

All three of us watch them walk away for a moment only for Thor to try and get the last word in by telling Tony Jane was better. Rose saw Tony about to retaliate and knew she had to quickly interfere if this night was going to go off without a hitch.

"Well Thor, I've never meet Doctor Foster, and believe me I would love too, but she has to be a really swell lady if she's going to even hope to compete with Pepper." Rose watched as Thor's brow furrowed and opened his mouth to come in defense of Ms. Foster but Rose beat him to it. "Now I'm only saying that because I've meet Pepper and I know what a fantastic woman she is, I haven't meet your Jane yet but from what I hear from not only your own mouth but also the mouths of others and from what I've studied about her she sounds like a really good gal. I would love to meet her sometime, I'm sure her and Bruce will have a blast talking all sciency, but you need to remember to each their own, Thor, to each their own. You are both very lucky men." Rose made a point to look both them in the eye as she said this shutting both of them up quickly.

Taking their silence as her chance to escape she sashayed away with her drink in hand but not before hearing Thor's question to Tony.

"She has studied Jane?" Rose chuckled to herself and shook her head finding it funny that was what Thor had focused on out of everything she had said.

Rose once again surveyed the room, scanning the crowd of old veterans, young women, politicians and other people she had no idea who they were. It looked like all the Avengers and even Doctor Cho were already in deep conversation with someone else so she decided to make herself scarce for the time being and moved up to the second floor of the loft to get a better view of the party buzzing below her.

There were fewer people on the second floor, mostly people looking for a quieter area for a conversation. She spent some time leaning against the railing looking out over the party goers before turning her attention behind her and looking out the floor to ceiling window out into the New York night.

She couldn't get rid of this nagging feeling in the back of her head, like she forgot something, which wouldn't be that surprising. She could be a real air head sometimes so maybe she did forget something. She took a big gulp of her champagne deciding not to think about it anymore knowing that whatever it was she would find out sometime.

Finally her ears picked up the sound of a familiar voice moving closer towards her, Steve was walking up the steps of the loft talking to a middle aged black man, obviously neither of them noticed her or else they would have stopped talking. Rose heard the man say something about a missing persons case he was working on and the distinct words 'cold leads' meaning they were getting nowhere. Rose listened to them talk about apartments in Brooklyn and found out Steve had been wanting one there for a while.

Damn you would think owners would be throwing apartments his way. How many people can say Captain America lives in their building! Then again, destruction seems to follow the Avengers everywhere so owners might actually end up losing money with the amount of repairs that would have to be done. Tony had lost two mansions already and had major repairs to the tower after the invasion.

But what Rose was more curious about was the missing person's case that they couldn't seem to get any leads on. Before she could even properly consider it her mouth was already moving for her.

"I could help you, you know."

Both of the men turned around startled at her sudden appearance and looked at her with both surprise and confusion.

"I'm sorry miss, do we know you?" The black man asked looking her over questioningly. Thank god she decided to wear heels tonight; at least with them on she didn't look like a child and actually came up to a little past the Captains shoulder instead of her usual 5'3 stature. If she was really going to offer her services to help them find this person she needed to be calm and professional so with one more big gulp of her drink she squared her shoulders and turned towards the man with her hand outstretched in greeting before Steve, with all his 40's gentlemanliness, had the chance to introduce her.

"Rose McQueen." Rose stuck out her hand in introduction and the man gladly shook it and introduced himself with a warm smile.

"Sam Wilson."

"Oh, right Sam Wilson! Former United States Air Force paratrooper, retired now of course, but I can see retirement does you well, wouldn't you say, Falcon?" Rose chuckled seeing his confused face. "I know everything that happened in DC and your contribution to it. I must say it's nice to finally meet you." Rose finally realized how creepy she sounded and immediately tried to correct herself but only ended up fumbling over her words. "I mean, not like I'm stalking you or anything! Not that someone wouldn't want to stalk you, you're totally stalkable! No scratch that! I just know all that because I read your file...wow actually I did stalk you I think. I'm so sorry! I don't usually word vomit like this, but then again whenever I'm negotiating its usually under a lot of pressure and with a gun pointed at my head-"

Thankfully Steve interrupted Rose before she hurt herself.

"Sam, this is the girl I was telling you about, the one that Tony recruited to help us locate the scepter. Sam Wilson, Rose McQueen. Rose McQueen, Sam Wilson. But I guess you already knew that didn't you?" Steve laughed.

Rose could only laugh awkwardly, glad Steve had intervened.

"So, wait, you're the girl that makes deals with criminals and helps illegal work on the black-market?" Sam chuckled obviously not very convinced after the display she just put on and her general appearance. She couldn't really blame him; she did look like a blond preppy girl with glasses. At least her body didn't look like a child's, and she decided to wear heels today so she didn't have to look straight up to meet Steve's and Sam's eyes. It seemed like everyone around here was monster sized, even their muscles!

"Is that how you described me Steve? Well I'm offended. I would have said charismatic personality and winning smile but of course you choose to focus on the negative things." Rose placed her hand on her hip as she playfully chastised Steve who actually looked a little bit ashamed of himself and sent her an apologetic smile. She rolled her eyes at him but couldn't fight the grin on her face. At least the Captain was warming up to her and not trying to lock her up in a prison cell for life... yet.

"What did you mean you could help? With the apartment?" Steve finally asked.

Well come to think of it she could probably get him an apartment rather easily but that was not what she was referring to. Right now she wanted to earn some big brownie points and prove that the Captain and the team could trust her. Or at least they didn't have anything to fear from her since she wouldn't do anything to hurt Tony.

"Actually, Steve, can I call you Steve? I was referring to that missing person's case Sam was talking about." Rose said looking at the nervous looks on their faces. She made sure to not look away from them or else they get suspicious of her. "And judging by the looks on your faces I'm guessing the rest of the team isn't fully aware of what you are doing, are they?"

"Okay. We're listening. And how long were you eavesdropping?" Sam asked looking her over again, a wary look now on his face. Rose was glad to see him finally taking her seriously.

"First of all, I wasn't eavesdropping; I was here first and just happened to hear you talking. And secondly, I don't know anything besides what I heard you talking about, missing person and what little leads you got end up being dead ends." She said taking another sip from her drink.

"Okay, we believe you, but why?" Steve suddenly said dragging her attention away from Sam to look at him questioningly. "Why would you help us?"

Rose was silent for a moment as she thought over her answer trying to decide whether to tell him it was a business move or just dismiss the question completely. Finally she decided that the best option when it came to Steve was to always speak truthfully.

"Because I know what it's like to search for someone endlessly with only dead ends to greet you at every turn."

The Captain studied her for a bit obviously wanting to ask more but seeing the look in her eyes decided not to and just nodded his head in understanding. Rose sighed in relief and took another swig from her drink now relaxing a bit more that the tension had lessened. Or at least she thought it was. Turns out they still had a few more jabs to send her way.

"Okay Rose, to tell you the truth we could really use the extra help since we don't want the rest of the team involved." Steve said before clearing his throat and shifting nervously. "So, um, what's it going to cost us?"

She really couldn't blame them; it was what she did for a living. But was it really that hard to think she would do something out of the goodness of her own heart? And from the looks both of them were directing at her you would think she was going to ask for their souls. Part of her wanted to mess with the Captain just to see how high he would be willing to go, but judging by how he said he couldn't even afford an apartment in Brooklyn it wouldn't even be worth it.

"No charge, Cap. I have a senior's special going on right now," Rose joked bringing her glass up to her lips again. "I didn't charge Tony for this job and I'm already pretty well off so it's not like another free gig is going to kill me. It's not like I got in this business for the money in the first place." She muttered tipping her glass back again letting the chill of the drink and the alcohol relax her.

"So what did you get in the business for if not the money?" Steve asked taking an opportunity when he saw one.

"That is a discussion for another time with less people, and more alcohol." Rose made her point by shaking her now empty glass. Both men looked at her previously full glass couldn't help but chuckle releasing the tense atmosphere that surrounded them.

"Thank you, Rose. And I would be happy to get you a refill," Steve said taking her glass from her with one hand and offering her his other like the gentlemen he was raised to be. She hooked her hand in the crook of his elbow and walked alongside him to the bar.

"So you're accepting my help?" Rose asked both of them as she let the Captain lead her happy to get a refill on her drink. Something told her she would need it.

"If you're as good as the Cap says you are then yeah I'm ok with it. I really use the help too." Sam says coming around to her other side and smiling at her.

"Alrighty then!" Rose said happily hooking her other arm through Sam's and letting them lead her back to the bar. "So which of you is going to tell me who exactly it is we are looking for?"

Rose watched as the two men looked at each other and had a silent conversation with their eyes before Steve turned to her and began to fill her in.

"Since you already know everything that happened in DC this should be easy," Steve said before continuing to tell her about Bucky being the winter soldier, which she already knew but let him tell her anyways, and told her about how Bucky had drug him out of the river then disappeared before Steve woke up. After listening to everything and hearing about the cold leads Sam had been sent on she knew this case was going to take a lot longer than a week.

"Well looks like I have my work cut out for me." Rose said with a cheeky smile and took a sip of her newly refilled drink, determined to drink this one much slower than the last.

After that awkward exchange between Steve, Sam and herself, she started to relax more and actually started having fun at the party. She talked with Sam and Steve a bit more before Steve eventually left to talk with Thor, something about an Asgardian brew, and Sam had to leave the party early saying he was just here to make an appearance. She listened to Rhodey tell his story again to a group of civilians and watched him nod to himself proudly when they reacted positively. She was able to once again talk with Doctor Cho, although it was more her doing the talking and Cho tolerating her presence and giving input where needed, and she was able to save Banner from a potentially awkward situation of his own creating. It was obvious he was not very comfortable being around so many people due to his secluded personality.

The party started slowing down after a while and one of the older veterans had to be walked home after taking some of Thor's brew. The upbeat music that had been playing previously was changed to soft jazz and Rose gently swayed to it as she once again found herself watching the interactions of all the people around her but not making any effort to try and join them. She wasn't like Tony; she didn't always want to be at the center of everything. She interacted with others when needed to but for the most part she preferred to watch from above and see what other people would do. Natasha seemed to have the same idea from what she had observed and by how the Widow had chosen to wander away from the rest of the party to mix a drink for herself.

Rose had noticed Natasha keeping a close eye on her all throughout the party. Rose wanted to be offended that Natasha would think she would try and sabotage not only the Avengers hard work but also her own. She had spent a week looking for that stupid scepter of doom or whatever the fuck they had decided to dub it now and now Tony was obsessed with the wonder stick thinking it had the answers to the whole universe! She would be glad when Thor finally took it away and she could finally get a good night's sleep without numbers, algorithms, and programs flying around in her head only to be woken up an hour later! Yes, she wanted to be unset but she couldn't find it in herself to march up to the Widow and demand she stop, not when she could understand why Natasha was doing it. Natasha had been trained from a young age to be suspicious of everything and right now Rose was the most suspicious thing in the room. And even though the rest of the Avengers didn't seem to mind her presence, some even encouraging it, she knew Natasha was just looking out for her friends. Rose really couldn't fault her for that.

Rose watched curiously as Banner went to the bar and started speaking with Romanoff. The atmosphere around them was oddly intimate and Rose couldn't help but stare interestedly since she was not aware the two of them were even interested in one another. Rose looked around to see if anyone else was as surprised as her but it seemed no one else was paying them any attention, which is except for the Captain who was watching them from the other end of the bar.

Once Natasha had left Rose saw Steve move up behind Banner and say something that made the Doctor feel very embarrassed but from the teasing look on Steve's face he obviously meant it in good humor. They exchanged a few more words before Steve walked away with Banner calling after him.

Rose grinned into her drink as she took another sip. It seems there was more drama in this rag tag band of heroes than just the usual battle injuries and tales of hard won victory. The relationship between the Widow and the Hulk was a surprise to her, she really didn't picture those two together. But then again, Natasha was one of the only people able to tame the Hulk so it made sense they would try for a relationship. But she was curious, how would they actually…?

Rose couldn't help but shudder at that thought and immediately expelled it from her mind. Luckily Tony decided at that point to come over and drag her into another conversation with everyone. It seemed everyone was finally accepting her into their little group and even managed to stay away from asking her questions about her work.

Later the party ended, at least the official party ended, with Tony the party didn't end till everyone was passed out. Everyone congregated around the couches continuing to talk and drink. Except for Cho who looked like she was going to pass put in her chair at any moment. Since the couches and chairs were full she ended up sitting on the floor between Clint and Hill. Somehow Clint was able to find drumsticks that he kept twirling in his hands as he argued with Thor calling Mjolnir a 'trick'.

"Whosoever be he worthy shall haveth the power!" Clint said in a deep ominous voice making her chuckle. She made a mental note to ask him again if he was sure he wasn't in Lord of the Rings. "Whatever man! It's a trick!"

"Well please, be my guest," Thor said gesturing to said hammer on the coffee table.

And that's how it all started with everyone taking turns trying to lift the magical hammer. Clint, for all his big talk, gave up rather quick which prompted Tony to try his hand, then his metal hand, then dragging Rhodey in with him. She cheered them on the entire time though she was pretty sure that if they could lift it up within the first minute then anything more was just wasted effort. Banner even gave it a shot and tried to be funny by doing an impersonation of the Hulk but no one laughed and he was forced to sit down awkwardly. Then it was Steve's turn which actually made her laugh as Thor's smile got whipped off his face when Steve was actually able to budge the unmovable hammer, though she doesn't think the Captain even noticed as he gave up not long after that and Thor's smile was back on his face.

Tony then gestured to Natasha and Rose offering them to go next. Natasha shook her head telling him that was not a question she needed answered and Rose agreeing with her as she to turned him down.

"All deference to the man who won't be king, but it's rigged." Tony said.

"You bet your ass." Clint agreed with him.

"Steve, he said a bad language word." Hill pointed her finger at Clint accusingly.

Steve looked towards both me and Tony. "Did you tell everyone about that?"

Rose gave him her best innocent look like she was appalled he would even accuse her of doing such a thing. Even though she did do it doesn't mean she liked being accused of it.

Tony ignored him and instead chose to continue badgering Thor on the hammer. "The handles imprinted, right? Like a security code. "Whosoever is carrying Thor's fingerprint" is, I think, the literal translation?"

"Yes, well that's a very, very interesting theory. I have a simpler one." Thor picked up the hammer with ease and flipped the hammer around in the air catching it. "You're all not worthy."

A chorus of disagreements arose in the air as everyone spoke up at once only to be immediately silenced as a loud screeching noise went out over the loft forcing everyone to cover their ears.

As soon as the noise started, it stopped. Tony immediately took out his Stark pad and was looking for the cause of the noise. Suddenly that bad feeling she had been having all night had just gotten ten times worse as she and everyone else turned around and saw one of the Iron Legion hobbling into the loft. It was missing one of its hands and walking with a limp as cords and wires dangled down through broken armor. The center of the robot's chest and through his broken face mask was lite up by an eerily familiar blue glow.

"Worthy...No...How could you be worthy? You're all killers." A robotic voice came from the machine as it turned to face them.

"Stark." Steve called to Tony not taking his eyes off the robot.

"JARVIS," Tony called to the ei.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep. Or I was a-dream?" The machine spoke again.

"Reboot, Legionnaire OS, we got a buggy suit." Tony tapped on his pad trying to shut down the suit without any success.

"There was a terrible noise...and I was tangled in...in...strings. I had to kill the other guy. He was a good guy."

"You killed someone?" Steve asked, actually talking back to the machine. Not taking her eyes off of the psychotic robot Rose took this time to move behind the big meat shield known as Thor so she could stand next to Doctor Cho. Neither of them were fighters and wouldn't be able to defend themselves very well if this became a brawl. Rose could tell Thor was thinking the exact same thing as he shifted his weight so he could stand more in front of them blocking them from any danger.

"Wouldn't have been my first call, but, down in the real world were faced with ugly choices." Although the words were supposed to sound sympathetic Rose could tell the machine felt nothing of the sort from its nonchalant tone.

"Who sent you?" Thor decided to try and question the machine too.

Suddenly the robot cocked its head stiffly and played a recording of Tony's voice, "I see a suit of armor around the world."

"Ultron," Banner said looking back at Rose and Tony confusing everyone else in the room, at least everyone else who wasn't a creepy robot, that is.

Rose, Tony, and Banner all looked at each other with a mix of worried, confused, and questioning looks seeing if anyone knew why or how this was happening.

"In the flesh. Or at least, no, not yet. Not this...chrysalis." Ultron said looking down at itself. "But I am ready. I'm on a mission."

Rose saw Hill back the hammer of her gun (was she carrying that all night?) as she slowly stood up and saw Thor tightening his grip on Mjolnir. Rose gripped onto Cho's arm ready to run when needed.

"What mission?" Natasha dared to ask.

"Peace in our time."

Suddenly more Iron Legion crashed through the wall behind Ultron and flew at them. The team was already in motion and they all either ducked for cover or immediately started fighting. Rose and Cho found the closest thing to hide under, the grand piano, and ducked under it as they watched the fight unfold before them.

Rhodey was knocked out on of the lofts windows and thankfully landed on the terrace below. Thor immediately engaged one of the robots hitting it with his hammer. Rose couldn't see Natasha and Banner anywhere but they wouldn't have to worry about the Hulk on top of the creepy robots. Steve jumped onto the back of one of the robots and started hitting it only to be thrown into a wall and land in a heap on the ground. Suddenly Rose saw Natasha and Banner make a dash up the stairs with the widow shooting (seriously, where are these girls hiding their guns) at the robot that had just knocked the Cap down. Rose saw Tony jump of the rail of the second floor and jump on the back of one of the robots poking at the wiring with some kind of sharp stick he must of found. Seriously didn't that idiot just see Cap do the same thing and get thrown into a wall, what was that idiot thinking! Thor knocked off the legs of one of the robots and, unfortunately threw it in Rose and Cho's general direction.

The upper half of the robot started to fly towards both Rose and Cho and raised one of its repulsors. Rose pushed Cho back behind her trying to protect the trembling woman as they both scooted back trying to get distance between them and the robot. Sometimes she really wished she was as paranoid as some of the other people in this room and had the foresight to bring some kind of weapon with her. It was only for a moment, but Rose saw the robot hesitate to kill them before Cap grabbed it from behind and threw it Thor's way as he crushed it under the might of Mjolnir.

Rose looked back towards Tony in worry and saw he had taken down his robot and was safe on the ground again. Clint had gone and gotten Cap his shield and threw it his was. The Captain caught it and threw it at the last flying robot crushing it and cutting it in half.

"That was dramatic!" Ultron spoke up again. "I'm sorry, I know you mean well. You just didn't think it through. You want to protect the world, but you don't want it to change. How is humanity saved it it's not allowed to...evolve?" With its good hand it leaned down and picked up the head of the robot Cap had just destroyed and crushes the head of the robot in its grip. "With these? These puppets? There's only one path to peace: The Avengers Extinction."

Having enough of the mad robots rant Thor throws his hammer and smashes the already fragile machine to pieces. With the remaining power the robot had left and fuzzy muffled version of Pinocchio's _I've got no Strings_ started to play before its power eventually died.

The air in the room was tense as everyone tried to recover and process the recent attack in their own base or in Tony's case his own home. Not that this is something new to him of course.

Rose helped Cho to one of the couches, doing her best to comfort the scared woman. Unlike everyone else in the room Cho was not used to dangerous situations like that. One would think since Rose was used to being in dangerous situations she would know how to defend herself or at least carry a gun like Hill or Romanoff but she had always gotten out of those life threatening situations but the skin of her neck and she didn't see a need for one anyways. She had pure luck on her side. Rose looked over at the team and saw none of them had moved or even spoken yet.

"Tony," Rose was the first to speak breaking the silence of the room.

Tony looked at her from his place leaning up against the steps of the loft.

"Correct me if I'm wrong but there are five Iron Legion aren't there?" Rose asked to which Tony nodded not having the will to speak at the moment knowing as soon as he opened his mouth the Cap was going to lay into him.

Thankfully everyone was paying attention to Rose at the moment so he was safe for now. Rose stood up and gestured around the destroyed room before looking at all of them again.

"So where's the fifth?"

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